


resurrected from your memory

by DFP



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, yes they're horny no they won't talk about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:20:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25055347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DFP/pseuds/DFP
Summary: Shuuichi touches Seiji's face, runs his thumb along the edge of the eye-patch which crinkles softly under his touch. Seiji's skin is as smooth and cold as marble, so the ridges of scar tissue, hidden under the paper, press clearly against Shuuichi's thumbprint."Seems painful," Shuuichi says, inanely.
Relationships: Matoba Seiji/Natori Shuuichi
Comments: 17
Kudos: 43





	1. are you alive

Shuuichi is sixteen and stumbling his way into becoming an exorcist. In defiance of his family, in defiance of his own common-sense. The world is bigger and stranger than even he knew it to be and he is lost in the wilds, his only wayfinder:

“He’s with me,” the way the boy says it, it sounds like _he’s mine_. Shuuichi is instantly, blindingly, furious at the superiority in his voice.

Seiji has a habit of showing up wherever Shuuichi is, wearing grubby track pants and a cold smile. He trails Shuuichi through the forest, his dark eyes lingering on things Shuuichi cannot see, his delicate hands lingering on the trees he passes, leaving traces of him wherever he goes. When their eyes meet Shuuichi feels as if his entire body blushes, radiating a prickling heat. Seiji’s gaze seems to have a physical weight, scouring his skin.

Will he always feel so wrong-footed? The path feels so unclear—is there a way forward without trampling on others?

He can feel Seiji’s placid smile electric on his skin.

Maybe there’s one person he wouldn’t mind trampling.

-

Shuuichi idles in one of the estate’s larger rooms, thinking what a waste of time it had been to come tonight. All the exorcists are too spooked to share any useful information, and all the gossip swirls around the black hole that is the Matobas.

Shuuichi has maintained a civil, if distant, relationship with the Matoba clan over the years. Rarely doing anything troublesome for them, but rarely assisting the clan in any significant way either. Somewhere between enemy and ally, despite Seiji’s easy division of the world into the two camps.

Still, he’s a bit surprised when Nanase approaches him to say, “Matoba-sama is holding brief audiences. Will you greet him?”

Shuuichi frowns. He’s heard all the rumours about the attack, of course. For a moment the word was Seiji had lost his eye but that was quickly corrected. _Just_ near-crippling damage to the eye. _Not a very auspicious ascendance to clan leader_ , Shuuichi reflects wryly. Then reconsiders—with the Matobas such an attack could truly be perceived as a right of passage.

He thinks of the way Seiji’s gaze could so easily immobilize him, how he always knew just how to get under his skin. He thinks of the way Seiji would offer help, clever suggestions, even the way he’d insist that Shuuichi call him ‘Seiji’, a calculated kindness that was weighed always in the clan’s favour. Shuuichi is older now, and wiser, he’d like to think, and he hasn’t been alone with Seiji since he got scouted and moved away.

“Natori-san?” Nanase presses. She’s impeccably put together, as usual. Tidily dressed, her feelings tucked neatly behind a sharp look and frowning mouth. She cuts through the crowd at the exorcist meeting easily, youkai and human alike parting respectfully at her approach. Shuuichi can feel the attention of those milling nearby and Sasago tensed behind his shoulder.

Shuuichi smiles, even though he doesn’t feel like it, “Of course, lead the way,”

He gestures at Sasago to continue observing the proceedings and follows the Matoba secretary down a long hallway until she eventually stops and indicates a doorway. “I’ll leave you to it,” she says, her tone unreadable.

Shuuichi hesitates in the hall for a moment. The last time he was alone with Seiji they had been in high school, and to say Shuuichi had run away then would be… a mild exaggeration. That moment has hung over them since, reflected in the sly glint of Seiji’s eye, the curve of his smirk. But ever since Seiji took over the Matoba clan it’s been easy to avoid him. This will be the first time in years they have been alone together.

Shuuichi slides the door open and experiences a sluggish sort of vertigo, as if he were staring into the past.

When they were in high school, Seiji often wore an old, faded pair of track pants. He’d trek through the forest in sneakers, looking like any apathetic teenager, but for the collapsible bow flung over one shoulder. Shuuichi had wondered if Seiji was in his school’s archery club, if he ever bothered to make excuses for his actions. Shuuichi had wondered a lot of things, then.

He tries not to, these days.

Seiji is sitting on a mat in a nearly empty room. There’s a large window, behind him, that frames him in a burst of milky sunlight. He looks up at Shuuichi as he enters but doesn’t smile. Shuuichi stares back, his heart in his mouth. Seiji’s wearing a black yukata and his long hair—has he never cut it?—falls over the right half of his face. He looks elegant, dangerous.

Shuuichi rather misses the grubby track pants.

They eye each other across the room for a long moment, the years between them stretched thin. Shuuichi is vain enough to wonder if he looks different to Seiji, now.

“Come here,” Seiji says, imperially. Shuuichi surprises himself—and maybe Seiji, too—by complying immediately.

He folds down onto his knees where Seiji directs, so close their knees almost touch. Seiji’s face is made of light and shadow; his pale skin, dark eye, the crisp whiteness of the paper eyepatch, the smear of ink across it. He looks at Shuuichi, the sharpness of his gaze heightened, not softened, by his hidden eye.

He both is and isn’t the boy of not so long ago. The cut of his jaw, the glint in his eye, the inky blackness of his hair, that is unchanged. But the eyepatch slices across his face, rendering it forever a before and after. Without his bland smile, Shuuichi can see that Seiji is a tightly coiled spring of rage.

“Well? Take your fill,” Seiji says, his face so still his lips barely move around the words. Shuuichi looks at him, then looks just at the eyepatch, the way the ink makes an almost-eye over the hollow of his socket. He feels as though he is slipping backwards. Is he a part of Seiji’s after? Shuuichi’s hand comes up between them before he thinks better of it.

He stills his hand, hovering lamely in the air, and searches Seiji’s expression for that familiar flicker of disgust. His face is blank, unmoving. Shuuichi realizes, embarrassed, that he has always followed Seiji’s lead in all their interactions. Now, though, he is silent and still, watching Shuuichi. Waiting for him to move.

Looking at him now, the blankness in his face, the light in his eyes, Shuuichi thinks he can imagine what Seiji looked like as a child. The thought is oddly comforting.

Shuuichi touches Seiji’s face, his palm cups the man’s jaw ever so lightly. He runs his thumb along the edge of the eyepatch, which crinkles softly under his touch. Seiji’s face is as smooth and cold as marble, so the ridges of scar tissue, hidden under the paper, press clearly against Shuuichi’s thumbprint.

And Shuuichi is sixteen again, trying to find his balance in a new order, and Seiji is snide and flippant and always _there_. Shuuichi is dizzy and exhausted and his hand is in Seiji’s soft hair and he’s saying…

“Seems painful,” Shuuichi says, inanely. He feels the lizard trace a path across his back, spine to hip. Seiji gives him a flat look that clearly communicates: _Don’t say useless things._

“How does it look?” Seiji asks, his voice a sharp whisper in the quiet. Shuuichi knows he is thinking of it too, that moment so long ago. Seiji’s cold hand clasps over his, carefully directs his thumb under the edge of the paper and lifts it up, away, revealing the snarls of scar tissue, the puffy red skin of a still-healing wound, a now-unfamiliar eye. “How would you _describe_ it?”

There’s acid in Seiji’s words, his voice a laceration. If he’s trying to fluster Shuuichi, for once it doesn’t work. There’s a taste like bile in the back of his throat, familiar to him, now, but he only feels nervous—this is important, he knows, and he doesn’t want to do the wrong thing. Seiji’s hand holds his steady, his good eye bores into Shuuichi’s like a dare.

Shuuichi leans forward on his knees, moving so slow Seiji has more than enough time to slip away, or hit him, or gut him with cruel words. Seiji doesn’t do anything of those things. He just sits so still he barely seems to breathe.

Shuuichi brushes his lips across Seiji’s brow, the topmost tip of angry red scarring. He drags his mouth lightly, ever so lightly, down, Seiji’s wounded eye flutters closed under his touch. His lips pass over the nasty snarl under his eye socket, follows the trailing scar that snakes down to Seiji’s earlobe. Seiji’s hand is an iron vice around Shuuichi’s fingers. There’s a harsh rasping sound that Shuuichi—whose breath has stilled in his lungs—belatedly realizes is Seiji’s breath gasping hard through his lips.

When Shuuichi reaches the very tail of scar tissue, at the hinge of Seiji’s jaw, he presses his mouth against him, parts his lips ever so slightly to taste his skin with his tongue. Seiji gasps softly, but he sounds so loud in Shuuichi’s ear, a blast of hot air against his face.

Before Shuuichi can even consider withdrawing Seiji turns his head slightly, baring his neck to him, a shameless invitation. Shuuichi is barely able to grit his teeth to muffle an embarrassingly earnest noise in the back of his throat.

He kisses down the pale column of Seiji’s throat, drags his tongue against smooth skin, tastes salt. Their hands are still tangled together, hovering awkwardly in the air beside Seiji’s face. Shuuichi is barely balanced forward on his knees, his free hand touching the mat beside Seiji’s knee. He opens his mouth against Seiji’s neck and scraps his teeth across pale skin, a smothered noise rumbles in Seiji’s throat. Shuuichi breathes in heavily through his nose, breathes in Seiji—the sharpness of his sweat, the sulphur of matches, the crisp blandness of soap—and without thought his free hand rips at the neck of Seiji’s yukata to reveal the top of his shoulder, his collarbone. Shuuichi bites the soft skin at the base of Seiji’s throat and this time Seiji cannot fully smother the moan he gasps into Shuuichi’s hair, his fingers clenching around Shuuichi’s.

There’s a faint thump, from just outside the room.

Shuuichi withdraws nearly as slow as he first approached. He sits back, his hand still caught in the bear trap of Seiji’s fingers, and looks at the exorcist. Seiji’s expression is unfamiliar—surprise, maybe?—his good eye glassy and heated, his eyepatch rumpled half off, the redness of his abused skin leaking across his face in the faintest flush. The side of his neck shines wet, soft red marks blooming clearly against his pale complexion, a gentle accompaniment to the puffy, red wounds on his face.

Shuuichi’s gaze falls to Seiji’s lips, parted gently, shining from the gloss of spit. As if in response to his gaze, Seiji’s tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip.

“Seiji,” he says, his voice rasping in his throat. Shuuichi is flayed open, defenceless. He doesn’t know how he feels in this moment only that he _feels_. Seiji tilts his chin slightly, a familiar gesture that lands like a punch in Shuuichi’s gut.

“Shuuichi,” he says. Shuuichi feels a molasses thick trickle of heat pool in his stomach, run down all his limbs. Seiji shivers, a fine tremor running through his body and into Shuuichi’s.

Shuuichi lunges forward and with his free hand grips the front of Seiji’s yukata in a fist, hauling him close as he leans forward once more, bringing their faces within inches of each other and then—freezes. Seiji’s grip on his hand does not ease—if anything it tightens, the bones of their fingers grinding together. Shuuichi does not breathe.

Seiji’s good eye glints in the half light. He says, “By all means,”

Whatever propelled Shuuichi to this point—bravery, stupidity—vanishes. He can’t tell what Seiji’s true meaning is—a test, a tease? What does he gain from this? What could Shuuichi lose? Seiji’s face is the same impassive mask it always is, though softened by his flush and mangled by his still-healing wound. Shuuichi can’t _read_ him, not in this.

Seiji hums briefly, a signal of mild disappointment. He leans in and his mouth brushes Shuuichi’s—a glance of warm, soft lips, the blur of his long eyelashes, the gentle touch of his warm breath.

He withdraws just far enough that his face comes back into focus, though they still breathe the same air. “Come back when you learn how to finish what you start,” he says, then untangles their hands and jerks his yukata free of Shuuichi’s grip.

Shuuichi sits back and then nods, once, mutely. He can feel his face flushing with—what? Embarrassment? Guilt? He unfolds to his feet and walks away, his heart slamming against his ribs, his pulse thundering in his fingertips. Part of him wants to go back, crawl into Seiji’s lap—but the rest of him wants to be out of this room _yesterday_.

Shuuichi hesitates at the doorway and looks back, “It must mess with your depth-perception,” he says, tapping a finger under his own right eye, “Don’t miss,”

Seiji is a marble statue in a rumpled yukata with blooming bruises on his neck, “Who do you take me for?”

-

Shuuichi stands in the glare of his fridge and considers the meagre options it provides. Three eggs, a melon gone soft, half a jar of homemade pickles. His slow process of coming to terms with yet another dinner of unseasoned omurice is interrupted by a tapping at the window. There’s a corresponding sinking feeling in his stomach, but Shuuichi goes to the window anyway.

He isn’t surprised to see a smoky, barely-human form at the glass, staring at him with large, guileless eyes. When Shuuichi inches open the window the shiki slithers through the slice of open air and to his dining table, where it deposits an envelope. It hovers uncertainly a moment, before slipping back the way it came, task completed.

Shuuichi sits in front of the envelope and considers it for a long moment. It wouldn’t go away, even if he ignored it. “Yes?” He says, eventually. At his voice, the paper unfurls to reveal a second scrap of paper inside—a glossy, colourful page torn from a magazine. Shuuichi scowls at the image, even as his ears go hot. The lizard coils around his right ear, as if to absorb the heat.

The picture is a slightly blurry nighttime shot of the front of Shuuichi’s building, of Shuuichi himself, facing the camera and another person, whose back is to the camera and features are completely obscured by their long, dark hair. Though the picture had obviously been digitally zoomed in, the expression on Shuuichi’s face is embarrassingly clear—soft, slightly surprised, _vulnerable_. The caption reads, in a cheerful thought bubble, _Natori Shuuichi says goodnight to a mysterious beauty outside his apartment!_

Shuuichi had seen the picture before, of course. His agent had sent it to him as a heads-up that his management knew about it, and he had gotten a slap on the wrist from them about the No Dating clause in his contract. _Dating_ , he had thought, amused, _my agent would have a heart attack if she knew the half of it_. Somehow, the sender of this clipping had resisted temptation to include any smug note but that did not soothe Shuuichi’s frustration. He could still hear Seiji laughing at him.

Two nights ago, Seiji had driven Shuuichi home after an exorcist event. Or rather, he’d had his driver drive the both of them to his apartment. Why Seiji had done so was a mystery to Shuuichi; to postpone going home himself? To tease Shuuichi? Trying to puzzle out his motivations was like working on a particularly difficult sudoku.

But Shuuichi had been drunk, a little, and hadn’t minded the silent company as he leaned his head against the car window and watched the streetlights cast bands of yellow across the road. It had been months since Seji had nearly lost his eye and Shuuichi had only seen him from afar, perfectly composed, dark eye flashing. It should’ve been strange how quickly Shuuichi had gotten used to the eyepatch.

Seiji had slipped out of the car with him, stood with him on the sidewalk, the streetlights turned his skin golden. He was close enough to touch, looking at Shuuichi with an unfamiliar light in his face.

Shuuichi had been a little drunk, maybe drunker than he thought, and he had tugged the ribbon from Seiji’s hair, letting it flow freely down the exorcist’s back. Maybe Seiji had been drunk, too, to let him do such a thing.

But Shuuichi looked at Seiji and did not see the glaze of alcohol in his eye, but a spark of sudden, crystal-clear understanding that threatened the very foundations of Shuuichi’s life.

Shuuichi stood there, his heart in his mouth, his hand in Seiji’s hair, which flowed through his fingers like silk. Seiji tilted his chin in a challenge, the warm breeze lifted his eyepatch ever so slightly.

“Thank you,” Shuuichi’s voice had been embarrassingly raw, “Matoba-san,”

He withdrew his hand from the curtain of hair carefully. Seiji touched a hand to his own hair, as if to capture the residual warmth of Shuuichi’s fingers in his own.

“Goodnight, Shuuichi-san,” he replied. His smile could’ve cut glass. Shuuichi had beaten a fast retreat into his building so he wouldn’t know how long, or how briefly, Seiji stood on the sidewalk, watching him go.

Now, Shuuichi sighs over the scrap from the magazine. _Nothing good can come of this_ , he tells himself. The Matoba clan is bad news. He has come so far on his own, resisting the singularity of the clan, forging his own path even in the dark.

Sometimes he wakes from dreams of silky hair and sharp, attentive eyes. He wakes sweaty, breath trapped in his lungs and tries to tell himself it was a nightmare. Not that nightmares usually include beautiful ink black hair, falling so perfectly stark against pale skin, its impossible softness in Shuuichi’s hand. Nor the way Seiji had breathed when Shuuichi kissed his neck, the way he had been so pliant and soft in Shuuichi’s hands.

Shuuichi passes time filming a new romance, exorcising a string of public libraries North of the city, going on dead-end publicity dates.

Mostly, he tries not to think about Seiji at all, but even that is, in its own way, attention.

-

And Shuuichi is sixteen shakily propped up against a tree. He spreads his fingers, counts them. There’s a sharp pain blooming behind his eye, did he hit his head? When would that have happened? He touches a hand to his face and realizes his glasses have fallen off.

Someone is crouched in front of him, a hand braced on the tree above Shuuichi’s head so they loom over him. School uniform, sharp black eyes, chin-length black hair. Shuuichi blinks dizzily up at Seiji and for a moment he spins in his vision, dark eyes dancing. Shuuichi’s hand moves of its own accord, his fingers comb through soft hair, fanning out around a pale face.

“Beautiful,” Shuuichi says, his voice soft. And whatever stories he tells himself later, however his relationship with Seiji tangles over the years—in that moment, he means it. Seiji’s expression freezes for a long moment, before his usual cold smile snaps into place.

-

Shuuichi is on set for the second season of a TV drama he shot the autumn before. It’s mostly the same cast, which is good, because his costars are pleasant, talented people who already know not to spend any time or energy trying to befriend him. He’s sitting in the back, reviewing the new pages for his upcoming scene. There’s a headache brewing behind his eyes from an exorcism that dragged out into the early morning hours. He feels barely conscious of his own body.

“So, this is what an honest day’s work looks like for you, hmm?”

Shuuichi’s shoulders jump up to his ears—is he hearing things? He could’ve sworn—Shuuichi keeps his eyes locked on the pages in his white-knuckle grip.

“Natori-san? Do you know this man?” Watanabe, the assistant director, gestures over his shoulder. Shuuichi turns to face Seiji, standing in the middle of the commotion surrounding set, wearing his usual indifferent smile.

“I—yes,” Shuuichi says lamely. He turns back to Watanabe and flashes her his most charming smile, “I’ll be back in a moment, okay?”

“Okay—take ten!” Watanabe replies, seemingly unfazed, as Shuuichi grabs Seiji by the elbow and all but drags him away from set.

“Hm? But I wanted to see _the_ Natori Shuuichi at work,” Seiji says. Shuuichi opens the door to his dressing room and thrusts the other man inside.

“What do you want?” He demands, closing the door behind himself.

Seiji tsks, “Rude.”

Shuuichi looks at Seiji properly. He’s wearing a suit, tailored perfectly to the line of his shoulders and his slim waist. He’s undone the top-most button, and the pale hollow of his throat peaks out above the knot of his tie. Shuuichi’s mouth floods with saliva—as if preceding bile.

Seiji does a slow turn in the middle of the room, taking in the small vanity, couch, and costume rack. Strands of his hair slip loose from their ribbon to dance over his shoulders. Seiji comes to a stop and regards Shuuichi.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Shuuichi feels a cold shock below his ribs.

“I don’t know what you mean,” He replies. It’s been three months since their last… meeting. He knows it down to the day, thanks to that paparazzi shot in the magazine. Shuuichi has been actively avoiding Seiji ever since. He can’t stand the thought of being looked at like that again—like Seiji could see straight through all his bullshit to his desires. Like Seiji could give him what he wanted.

 _You wanted to be known_ , a reasoning voice says in Shuuichi’s head. _Not by_ him _!_ He thinks, angrily.

“Oh?” Clearly Seiji doesn’t believe him.

“What’s with the suit, you bullying some politician again?” Shuuichi gestures vaguely at Seiji’s… everything.

“That’s not the way I’d describe it, no,” Seiji says, smiling blandly. He touches one hand to the hollow of his throat, “Why? You don’t like it?” His fingers tug at the collar of his shirt, exposing more of his neck, “Is it too restrictive for your tastes?”

“Shut up!” Shuuichi flushes, “You make me sound like a pervert,”

“My apologies, am I mistaken?” Seiji looks at him coolly.

“Did you come here just to—to—” _make fun of me?_ They’re not kids anymore, Shuuichi isn’t about to say shit like that. The very thought embarrasses him.

“No,” the word sinks like a stone in the pit of Shuuichi’s stomach.

Seiji steps in close and raises a hand, Shuuichi steels himself so he won’t flinch, and undoes the ribbon from his hair. Shuuichi stares, bewildered, as the long curtain of Seiji’s hair cascades around his shoulders. Shuuichi’s heart slams up into his throat and he feels a familiar compulsion to slap that indifferent smile from Seiji’s face, to cup his jaw like he had, so long ago. _Fight or fuck_.

Seiji grips the front of Shuuichi’s shirt tight and glares at him, no hint of a smile in his expression. “Don’t avoid me,” the words are a command. Then Seiji drags him in until their mouths collide.

Shuuichi is not unfamiliar with kissing. In fact, one could argue it’s a major part of his day job. But the kind of kissing Shuuichi is familiar with is polite, neutered—concerned more with questions of blocking and lighting and thoughts of how to broadcast desire without actually acting upon it.

Shuuichi isn’t thinking about how this kiss looks, which is probably for the best, if he’s as messy as he feels.

Seiji scraps his teeth across his lip then pries into his mouth, his lips soft, his tongue demanding. Shuuichi meets him without thought, thrusting his tongue into Seiji’s mouth, exploring him in return. Heat pools in his stomach, in his shaking hands.

He reaches up a hand—to push Seiji away, to pull him closer—and his fingers tangle with the silky strands of Seiji’s hair. Shuuichi groans into the kiss, stroking mindlessly through his hair. Seiji bites Shuuichi’s bottom lip, then perfunctorily soothes the bite with his tongue.

Shuuichi gathers a fistful of silky black hair and tugs so Seiji’s head snaps back, exposing the long line of his throat and releasing from him a breathy moan. Shuuichi sucks a bruise into the thin skin over his artery. Seiji’s hand fists in Shuuichi’s shirt and holds him close as Shuuichi kisses his way back up to his mouth.

Heat spikes in his gut, curling around the base of his spine and sending sparks out to every inch of his body. Shuuichi kisses Seiji, licks along the roof of his mouth, his teeth, as Seiji probes his mouth in return, with a kind of mindless thoroughness. Shuuichi wants to _devour_ him.

As abruptly as Seiji had kissed him, he pulls away, releasing Shuuichi’s shirt and shoving him back a step. Shuuichi stares at Seiji, flushed, eyepatch and shirt rumpled, his hair loose and mussed, his lips pink and spit slicked. He feels that he is on the cliff’s edge of understanding something significant about himself, about Seiji.

He thinks, _he looks—_

There’s a spark in Seiji’s eye, like flint on steel, that tells Shuuichi he knows what he’s thinking. Seiji smooths down the front of his shirt and produces a plain hair band that he uses to smoothly, carelessly, knot his hair back into a bun. Shuuichi feels a hot lurch in his gut at the sight—the reveal of the long line of his neck, the delicate twist to his wrist—it is somehow the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

Seiji steps past him to make for the door but stops at the last moment and looks back over his shoulder, “I won’t warn you again,” he says, before calmly opening the door and letting it swing shut behind him.

Shuuichi is left staring at his own reflection in the vanity mirror, faced with an unfamiliar, hungry expression. He touches a hand to his lips, which echo with Seiji’s touch. His pulse throbs in his throat. Desire tastes like bile in his mouth. He is a fool.

-

Shuuichi is beginning to understand the pattern of his life.

Seiji at fifteen and dressed sloppily, in a pair of ratty track pants and a sweater, utterly apathetic to his own appearance. Shuuichi rankled at it—the long line of his neck, accentuated by the hair that just touched his jaw, the elegant grip of his fingers on his bow, the deep red colour of his eyes.

Seiji at twenty-two, his hair long and silken down his back, appraising Shuuichi at a glance. The knife’s edge of his jaw, the fine bones of his wrist. The sharp line of the eyepatch across his face, the strength of his grip, the way he hissed Shuuichi’s name.

The way Seiji went so soft, pliant, as Shuuichi dragged his lips across his skin, the taste of salt, of sulphur. The way Seiji gripped the front of Shuuichi’s shirt and pulled him in to kiss him. The warmth of his mouth, the drag of his tongue.

The way Seiji didn’t wipe the spit from his mouth before leaving the dressing room—his lips still shining and swollen and obvious.

Shuuichi lays awake and aches.

-

“I don’t like this,” Hiiragi says.

Shuuichi tosses his toiletry kit into his overnight bag and frowns at it. He has barely seen Seiji for the last two months, save the occasional glance at an exorcist meeting. Shuuichi, as is traditional, always breaks eye contact first. He is sure that, somehow, Seiji will read in his eyes every dream of Seiji’s mouth he has woken from. He is beginning to think it would be worth anything—humiliation, rejection, death—to soothe the desire lodged beneath his heart.

“I heard you before,” Shuuichi says to his shiki, who crosses her arms and stares at him. He can feel the weight of her gaze even through her mask which makes him glad there’s something to protect him from the force of her glare.

“You should not go alone,” Hiiragi continues, doggedly.

“I can handle Matoba-san,” Shuuichi says, zipping up the bag. The intensity of Hiiragi’s stare, against all odds, increases.

“I’m sure,” she says, tone as bland and heavy as a hammer. Shuuichi carries the bag out into the living room, where he dumps it on the floor and stretches out on the couch.

“It’s not exorcist business,” he tells her, tiredly.

“Do you believe that?” Hiiragi asks. Shuuichi is silent for so long his shiki takes it as a response, “You are bringing your tools,”

“Yes of course,” Shuuichi sighs. He’s stashed his usual exorcist supplies in the bag, “Now let me sleep,”

Hiiragi indulges him in the illusion of rest by falling silent as Shuuichi stares up at the white ceiling. Why _had_ Seiji invited him to a weekend stay at an inn? Shuuichi had been cornered—literally—by Seiji a week ago at an exorcist meeting. As Shuuichi backed up against a wall and tried not to look trapped, Seiji had leaned in close and said, “Fancy a getaway?”

Shuuichi, occupied largely with the triangle of milky skin revealed by the neckline of Seiji’s yukata, had bumbled out: “Business or pleasure?”

Seiji had smiled, predatory, “It is certainly not business. You are free next weekend,”

Shuuichi examined and dismissed the option of making a fuss over Seiji learning his schedule and just replied: “Yes.”

“I’ll pick you up on Friday, then, at four,” Seiji replied before swanning away to terrorize someone else.

“Natori-sama,” Hiiragi had said, deeply disapproving.

Now, the doorbell rings and Shuuichi peels himself off the couch and goes to meet his fate.

“What are you wearing?” Is the first thing Shuuichi says to Seiji when he slides into the car.

Seiji gives Shuuichi his most meaningless smile, “This isn’t a work trip. I may dress as I please,”

Shuuichi stares at his track pants, a pale red, torn a bit at the heel, at his hooded sweatshirt that swallows up the delicate lines of his body. He looks so soft, so comfortable. Shuuichi’s mouth waters and he wonders if they could be the same track pants Seiji had in high school.

“What? Is it so shocking?” Seiji asks, dryly. Shuuichi jerks around to stare out the window as the car pulls smoothly onto the road. _Don’t lose your mind over some fucking gym gear!_ Shuuichi rails against himself mentally.

The rest of the hour-long drive passes in a tense silence.

At the inn, Shuuichi hovers awkwardly while the driver checks them in. Seiji stands off to one side, indifferent to the proceedings. It makes Shuuichi wonder how many conversations he has with people outside of his staff. Everything by proxy.

A sweet-smiling woman leads them upstairs to their shared room and then bows out with a polite reminder about dinner service. Seiji strides into the room, goes to the large window and looks out over the garden. The driver deposits his bag by the door and excuses himself. Shuuichi’s knuckles bleed white from his grip on his own bag.

“Why are we here?” He asks. Seiji turns to face him, expression a mask of amused surprise.

“It’s neutral territory, of course,” he replies, as if stating the obvious. The afternoon sun limns his body butter yellow.

“What?” Shuuichi can’t help but scowl.

“It’s not a Matoba property, and we have no contract with the owners,” Seiji sounds as if he is about to laugh, “So it’s somewhere neutral to both of us,” Shuuichi’s teeth grind together. He drops his overnight bag and rubs both hands over his eyes, through his hair.

“Why?” He asks, at length.

“Why?” Seiji very nearly laughs, Shuuichi swears he can tell, “I’m trying to sleep with you, of course,”

Shuuichi stares at the other man. Seiji’s face remains a calm mask, Shuuichi’s, unfortunately, begins to heat. Seiji steps away from the window, walks into Shuuichi’s space, touches a hand lightly to his forearm.

“Do you think I’m lying?” His voice is soft, like the rasp of scales. Shuuichi looks into his dark red eye and has to look away. An answer in itself.

The thought of Seiji capitulating to Shuuichi’s pride annoys him even though the logic is sound—Shuuichi would never give any of himself on Matoba grounds. Shuuichi could not explain it to anyone, but he knows that Seiji is being sincere and—in his own way—vulnerable. Shuuichi has been tormented by the memory of Seiji kissing him for eight long weeks and, he realizes with shock, maybe Seiji has been similarly tormented.

“Well,” Seiji removes his hand from Shuuichi’s arm, and instead gestures vaguely, delicately, “Shall we get changed for dinner?”

The threat of moving on from this tenuous moment is enough to push Shuuichi to act. He reaches out, grasps Seiji’s wrist. His pulse flutters under thin skin. He can allow himself this. Shuuichi forces himself to look Seiji in the eye and says, “No. I like…” he touches his free hand to the waistband of Seiji’s track pants, “this,”

He’s glad he’s forced himself to make eye contact because he sees the very instant Seiji’s pleasant façade melts into genuine surprise. His mouth slackens from its habitual smile, his eye goes wide. Shuuichi, who tracks every microscopic shift of Seiji’s perpetually bland expression, feels a jolt of hot, proprietary pleasure.

There’s nothing else for it, he pulls Seiji in by the waist and kisses him.

He nearly groans from the relief of it, from Seiji’s lips meeting his familiarly, the way his tongue flicks at his bottom lip before sliding into his mouth. Shuuichi kisses him mindlessly, desperately and Seiji responds in kind. Shuuichi releases Seiji’s wrist and puts both hands on his waist, squeezes him hard and pulls their bodies flush together. Seiji grunts into his mouth and rakes his fingers through Shuuichi’s hair.

Everywhere Shuuichi’s body touches Seiji’s lights up hot, his stomach, hips, thighs, Seiji’s hands, electric in his hair, Seiji’s mouth, hot and wet and hungry. It is so easy, in the end, to be swallowed up by desire.

Shuuichi slips one hand under Seiji’s sweatshirt and meets only the smooth, soft skin of his stomach. Shuuichi’s heartbeat hammers in his ears. His hand stroking up Seiji’s side, Shuuichi pulls back, “Can I?” He asks, voice thin and breathless.

Seiji’s eye seems impossibly dark when he breathes, “Yes,”

Shuuichi tears off Seiji’s sweatshirt and runs both his hands up his sides, traces the lines of his ribs, the delicate slope of his shoulders. His skin is curiously unblemished, no obvious scars or bruises, just soft, milky skin that shivers at his touch. Shuuichi runs his fingers down his arms, to encircle his wrists, and the hair on Seiji’s arms raises as if to hold on to his touch.

Seiji stares at him, his breath rushing through his parted lips, a flush beginning to stain his cheeks, goosebumps rippling along his skin.

Shuuichi kisses him, slowly, messily. He can feel Seiji’s breath, rushing out his nose, hot on his face. He releases Seiji’s wrists so he can smooth his hands down his back, so he can feel Seiji’s body press against his own. Seiji’s hands pluck at Shuuichi’s clothes as his hips shift, restless. He’s so hard and Seiji’s only taken off his _shirt_. Shuuichi makes a truly embarrassing noise and then drops to his knees, presses his mouth, open, against the tender skin of Seiji’s stomach.

Seiji gasps as Shuuichi kisses, sucks, bites along his stomach, his hipbones, the stretchy waistband of his track pants. The fucking _track pants_. Shuuichi drags lower, mouths at the erection the pants do nothing to disguise. “ _Ah_ ,” Seiji gasps, his hands tangling just this side of too tight in Shuuichi’s hair.

Shuuichi’s head is full of white noise. They walked into this room _minutes_ ago. He cannot rationalize to himself why he is teasing Seiji through his pants in some random country inn. He can smell Seiji through the track pants and realizes, deliriously, that he could cum in his own pants if he isn’t careful. The only course of action, it seems to Shuuichi, is to make sure Seiji comes first.

He slips his hand inside Seiji’s pants and pulls out his cock and sucks him down at a frankly desperate speed. Seiji makes a sharp, startled sound, Shuuichi’s pretty sure he yanks out some of his hair.

Shuuichi clumsily tries to account for his teeth and tongue as he takes Seiji’s cock as far as he can, then eases up, tracing the lines of veins with his tongue. He swirls his tongue around the head of his cock and looks up at Seiji through his eyelashes.

Seiji’s eye is barely open, his one hand grips Shuuichi’s hair like a lifeline, the other traces an unsteady line up his chest which jumps with his breath, gasping hard and fast through his mouth. Shuuichi swallows his cock back down and Seiji chokes back a moan.

There’s a knock at the door. “Sirs? Dinner will be served shortly,” a polite voice calls out.

Shuuichi draws back until only the head of Seiji’s cock is in his mouth and looks up at him.

“Thank you, we will be out shortly,” Seiji replies. From voice alone he seems indifferent, maybe mildly annoyed at the intrusion. But Shuuichi can see the hot flush crawling down his throat, the glazed heat in his good eye, the way his tongue presses against his bottom lip as Shuuichi’s tongue presses into the slit of his cock.

“We look forward to serving you,” the staff member replies brightly, then shuffles off.

Shuuichi pulls off his cock with a wet pop. “Shall we change for dinner?” Shuuichi says, aiming for disaffected and missing the mark. Seiji looks like he’d rather cum on his face than do anything else. Desire burns like bile in the back of his throat.

“I want to cum on your face,” Seiji says. Shuuichi grins and licks up the underside of his cock, watches the corresponding flutter of Seiji’s eyelashes.

“I’m flattered,” he replies, as if it were a joke, “Maybe for dessert,” he reaches up and untangles Seiji’s death grip on his hair so he can sit back on his heels. _Fuck_ but Seiji looks good. All flushed and disheveled, swallowed up by desire and, best of all, _frustrated_. Shuuichi smiles; let Seiji be the one wrong-footed, for once.

They change into the inn’s yukatas and head down to dinner in silence. There are only a few guests, maybe six in total, so the dining room is not loud enough to conceal the ringing silence Shuuichi and Seiji eat in. Shuuichi can tell they’re making the wait staff uncomfortable, but his polite words to them only seem to make it worse. Seiji sits across from him, stone-faced. If he’s frustrated, or embarrassed, or impatient, Shuuichi can’t tell.

Oh, but Shuuichi longs to be free of him. Every moment dedicated to deciphering Seiji’s gestures and expressions, to guessing his moods and thoughts. Every moment strung out between longing and something akin to hatred, a hot intensity that spikes in response to every perceived change in Seiji’s countenance. Let this night free him. Let Shuuichi touch Seiji and destroy his power over him.

When their dishes are taken away, Seiji rises and smiles at him blandly. Shuuichi’s face, seemingly without his say-so, smiles in kind. Back in their room, the futons have been laid out. Seiji immediately undoes his hair so it falls loose around his shoulders, opens his yukata to reveal his naked body and arranges himself on one of the futons. He looks up at Shuuichi imperially, “Well?”

Desire swallows Shuuichi up so fast he gets dizzy. Thoughts of destruction bleed so easily into a need to touch, to taste, to own. He stumbles forward onto his knees and crawls over to the other man. Half benediction, half condemnation.

When he’s in reach Seiji grips the front of Shuuichi’s yukata, “You too,” he says, flatly. Shuuichi sits back and strips indifferently, lets his yukata fall off his shoulders to pool on the floor. Seiji stares as if his gaze alone could devour him.

Shuuichi crawls over him and presses Seiji gently back onto the futon. His brain is full of useless static, his blood runs electric in his veins.

“I’m going to ruin you,” Shuuichi breathes.

“Do your worst,” Seiji returns, dry, but he turns a delightful shade of pink.

Shuuichi leans down to kiss him, and Seiji cranes his neck to meet him halfway. Shuuichi sucks Seiji’s tongue into his mouth, explores him hungrily, thoroughly. He strokes down Seiji’s front, tracing his collarbones, nipples, sides, the dip of his hip bones. Seiji shivers under him, runs an experimental hand down his back in return. His hands are cold, his skin is soft. Shuuichi thinks, greedily, irrationally, _I want to taste him everywhere_.

He kisses his way down Seiji’s chest, following the path his hands traced. He sucks one nipple into his mouth, delighted by the way Seiji arcs into him. Seiji runs one hand through Shuuichi’s hair, holds on as he works his way lower. Shuuichi kisses his stomach, licks the sharp lines of his hip bones, runs his hands down the soft skin of his inner thighs. Shuuichi cannot believe, not completely, that he is touching Seiji, kissing Seiji, that Seiji is gasping and wiggling under his touch. He caves so easily to Shuuichi’s touch—too easily?—Shuuichi is in a fog of lust, his whole body hot and thrumming in rhythm with Seiji’s thin breath.

He kisses down the seam of his thigh, shoves Seiji’s legs further apart, sucks a soft red blush into the highest point of his thigh. Seiji squirms, gasps, clenches a fist in his hair. Fuck, but Seiji’s so hard already, his cock red and eager, straining towards his touch. Shuuichi opens his mouth around his balls and gently sucks at the tender skin. Seiji jolts and moans, softly. Shuuichi’s hips jerk down into the futon.

“No one’s ever touched me this way before,” Seiji says, matter-of-factly between gulps of air.

Shuuichi props himself up and looks down at him, flushing, disheveled. He feels a live wire coil around the base of his spine. _No one else will_ , he thinks, madly.

Seiji looks up at him, good eye dark and foggy and a corner of his mouth lifts into a smirk. _Just you_ , Seiji doesn’t say.

Shuuichi spends an indeterminate amount of time—too much, too little—working Seiji up nearly to orgasm only to back off, cool him down, over, and over. Seiji gasps and keens and cranes into his touch but never asks for more, never says _please_.

Shuuichi preps him, working slowly and methodically to fit one, two, three fingers inside him. He watches Seiji fuck down onto his hand and wonders, half-hysterical, if it’s all some elaborate youkai illusion. _Worth it_.

“Look at you,” Shuuichi’s voice is barely recognizable to himself, “Just for my fingers,”

Seiji makes an inelegant, wheezing sound that erupts into a moan as Shuuichi takes his dick into his mouth, sparing him the need to respond. “Shuuichi,” Seiji says, then; “ _Fuck_ ,” Shuuichi groans around Seiji’s dick. That really shouldn’t be as hot as it is.

Shuuichi pulls on a condom and slicks up with slow drags on his cock. He positions himself between Seiji’s legs and just looks. Seiji is blushing all down his throat, his chest. One of his hands reaches up to tangle in Shuuichi’s hair, the other flutters ineffectually near his own head. Red marks begin to bloom purple on his neck, collarbone, hip. Shuuichi’s heart clenches at the sight.

“Okay?” Shuuichi breathes. Seiji gives him a look and pulls him in with a press of his heel to his back.

“Don’t miss,” he huffs. Shuuichi scowls, as a matter of habit, and presses inside Seiji in one long, slow, drag. They both make loud, desperate sounds as he bottoms out. It’s so much, so hot, so tight. Pleasure blooms below his navel, hot and sharp.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Shuuichi chants softly. Seiji yanks Shuuichi’s head down with the hand in his hair and bites his throat, hard.

“Move,” he rasps against his artery, or maybe; “Mine,”

Either way, Shuuichi begins to move. He finds a steady rhythm and then, after some adjusting of legs, finds Seiji’s prostate and slams into it. Each time Seiji makes a wounded noise which makes Shuuichi’s brain fuzz out. He stares up at Shuuichi, looking blissed out and shocked, as if he can’t believe his own pleasure.

“Seiji,” Shuuichi says, urgently. Seiji just whines in reply, his face screwing up, which— _fuck_. Shuuichi shifts his weight onto one hand and wraps the other around Seiji’s cock, pumps him urgently, sloppily. Seiji’s back bends like his bow as he comes, clenching tight around Shuuichi whose own orgasm crashes over him.

It takes a long time for Shuuichi’s breath to even out, even longer before he regains control of his faculties. He slips out of Seiji then carefully pulls off the condom and ties it off. He gets up to chuck it in the garbage and grab a flannel, which he drags vaguely around his crotch before dropping it onto the mess on Seiji’s stomach. He lays down on his back beside him with a sigh, their shoulders just barely touch as Seiji wipes himself clean.

Seiji is tense, an energy radiates from him that Shuuichi would label nervous, in anyone else. Shuuichi is still in a daze, happy to lay in the quiet and the dark. He has the distinct sense that anything he could say would be pointless, even as the air grows thick.

Eventually, Seiji sits up to tie his hair back. Shuuichi watches, with falsely idle interest, the twist of his wrists and fingers as he ties off the ribbon. When he turns to face Shuuichi, his eyepatch is endearingly rumpled.

“Shall we visit the hot springs?” He says, in his bland voice. Shuuichi looks back at him, careful to mute his own expression. Is this the game—get closer only to be pushed aside? _Will I ever understand him?_ Shuuichi wonders, wryly.

“Sounds good,” he agrees, peaceably.

They soak in the hot springs for the last half-hour that they’re open. Shuuichi would’ve enjoyed it more if he hadn’t been so distracted by the way condensation gripped Seiji’s collarbones, the drips of water down his delicate wrists.

Back in their room they fuck, again. Seiji is so pliant and soft under his touch Shuuichi has the irrational fear that he’ll fall apart. Looking down at Seiji, dazed and gasping from Shuuichi’s cock inside him, there’s a hot twist in Shuuichi’s chest. _I will know you_ , he thinks, vindictive.

-

Shuuichi wakes slowly, enveloped in a fuzzy cloud of bliss. He becomes aware of his body piecemeal—first the hot, wet, feeling of Seiji kissing the back of his neck then the grip of Seiji’s hand around Shuuichi’s cock, stroking him steadily. Shuuichi makes a loud, garbled noise and his hips jerk greedily into Seiji’s hand.

“Hmm,” Seiji hums against the back of his neck and grinds his dick against the cleft of Shuuichi’s ass, “You’re close, aren’t you?” If he wasn’t before, the sound of Seiji’s sleep-slow voice, thick with arousal, swamps his veins in a hot white fizzing. Shuuichi grips his pillow in a fist, suddenly gasping for air. Seiji sucks a bruise into the thin skin below Shuuichi’s ear, then bites down. Shuuichi is overwhelmed, caught between the press of Seiji’s body against his, and Seiji’s hand around his cock, stoking hot pleasure in his gut. A high, thin whine escapes his lips.

Seji pulls away, shoves Shuuichi onto his back and leans over him, his hand loose around the base of his cock. His long, silky hair falls around them in a curtain as Shuuichi stares, stunned, up at him. The eyepatch is gone, probably crumpled among the sheets, revealing the snarls of white scar tissue tangled around Seiji’s ruined eye. He looks down at Shuuichi intensely, hungrily.

“Say it,” Seiji spits out, beginning once again to stroke Shuuichi’s cock, who can only produce a half-swallowed moan in response. Disoriented and on the cusp of orgasming, Shuuichi runs a hand, dumbly, through Seiji’s hair.

“Tell me,” Seiji’s voice is angry, disgusted, even as his expression shifts towards the shocked, open look he had just before he came the night before.

“Beautiful,” Shuuichi gasps, stroking clumsily through Seiji’s hair, “You’re beautiful,”

However Seiji responds is lost on him, as Shuuichi comes messily, almost violently, and momentarily loses all sense of himself, his surroundings. When he reopens his eyes, he is still cocooned safely within the curtain of Seiji’s hair as Seiji fists his own cock impatiently. When he catches Shuuichi’s gaze he says, “I said I wanted to cum on your face,”

“Yes,” Shuuichi says, blearily, and opens his mouth. Seiji grunts and shifts to straddles Shuuichi’s chest. Shuuichi gives himself a break from deciphering Seiji’s expressions and focuses just on his cock, red and leaking, watches the way Seiji’s delicate hand touches himself, quickly, roughly. He runs his hands along Seiji’s pale thighs, presses into the soft bruises he left the night before.

Seiji comes in stripes across Shuuichi’s cheek, mouth, throat. He pants and watches, with that wonderful look of surprise on his face, as Shuuichi swallows what landed in his mouth. “Satisfied?” Shuuichi asks with a smirk.

Seiji huffs and crawls off him, scrounges up the much-abused flannel and then returns to gently wipe his face clean. “For now,” Seiji replies, airily, the usual look of indifference back in place. It’s not as effective when he’s naked. Shuuichi takes the flannel and wipes his own semen off his stomach, then sits up to look at Seiji directly.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” he asks, running his fingers down the long strands of Seiji’s hair. Seiji glares at him, witheringly, but Shuuichi can count four soft bruises he sucked into his throat, his collarbone, and it undermines the overall effect.

“Does it matter?” Seiji returns, impatiently, but he lets Shuuichi pull him in closer, plant a soft kiss on the top of his shoulder. Shuuichi breathes in the smell of him, sharp sweat, sulphur, and runs a hand through his hair.

“Yes,” he replies, softly. With his face tucked against Seiji’s shoulder he can’t see his face. Seiji kisses the back of his neck, sending shivers down his arms. An answer in itself.

-

By the time he stands in his apartment Sunday night, Shuuichi is exhausted beyond measure. He stares in his bathroom mirror at the large, purpling bruise Seiji bit into his throat. It’s tender, stinging under his touch. His reflection scowls at him.

Time passes but doesn’t ease the heady thrum of blood in his veins. He closes his eyes and he is touching the delicate bones of Seiji’s wrists, dragging his lips down his thigh, watching Seiji’s breath hitch at his touch, watching him squirm beneath him, flushed and fucked and looking straight into him.

He understands that this will be the death of him.

Three weeks pass before an invitation from Seiji arrives via letter. A date and time, the upcoming weekend when once again Shuuichi is free, the name of what he assumes is another inn, and a medical form declaring that Matoba Seiji is free of STIs. Shuuichi has to put the paper away in order to untangle his thoughts and feelings in peace.

He’ll go, of course he will. He had been stupid to think his obsession with Seiji was something he could fuck out, but in the three weeks that have passed he’s come to terms with this fact: He will never be free of Seiji.

-

Seiji picks him up in the usual black car and when Shuuichi slides inside he nearly chokes on his own tongue. Seiji smiles at him.

“Hello, Shuuichi-san,” he says, his voice like silk, his smile like a knife. Seiji is wearing an old, ratted-at-the-heel, rolled-at-the-cuffs tracksuit and his hair is down, cascading across his crossed arms.

Shuuichi stares, flushing hotly. He spends the whole drive white-knuckled, stealing long glances at Seiji, just out of reach. Seiji smirks at him whenever their eyes meet. _You’re too easy to tease_ , he can almost hear him say. Shuuichi is annoyed that it’s true, and annoyed that Seiji looks so _good_.

Their arrival at the inn is timed within minutes of the dinner service, so Shuuichi has to stomach the sight of Seiji—hair undone, unsmiling, in a fucking _tracksuit_ —for another hour. He’s seething, and what’s worse is he knows Seiji can tell. He doesn’t taste any of the food.

The second they’re behind closed doors in their room Shuuichi grips Seiji by the arms and stares at him. Seiji smiles and tilts his chin, “Do you have something for me, Shuuichi?” he very nearly purrs. Embarrassingly, Shuuichi flushes.

“Yeah,” he mutters, and releases Seiji to dig the paper out of his overnight bag. When he turns, Seiji is sitting primly on one of the futons, looking up at him with bland disinterest. Shuuichi hands him the page wordlessly. Seiji glances at it, skimming the declaration that Shuuichi is clean, then tosses it aside.

“So?” he prompts, falsely pleasant. Shuuichi stares down at him, feeling wrong-footed and very aware of his empty hands. He had felt so sure the last time—but then, Seiji had led him to think and feel that way. Is this the game—pull and push, never standing on solid ground?

He watches Seiji watch him, tries to pry into the mask of neutrality he’s wearing. He looks tense, he looks annoyed—with Shuuichi? With himself? Shuuichi forces himself to sit across from Seiji on the futon and lean forward into his space. Seiji tracks his every movement, unblinking.

“May I?” his voice comes out soft as he raises a hand to touch Seiji’s cheek. He doesn’t imagine the way Seiji’s eye darkens. A knot loosens in his chest.

“May you what?” Seiji returns, his voice is quiet, too, but he lets Shuuichi touch his face, even tilts into the touch ever so slightly. Shuuichi watches that micro-movement hungrily.

“Kiss you,” barely more than a whisper, “Please,”

Seiji reaches out a hand and places it on Shuuichi’s breast, “Yes,”

Seiji is slow to thaw under his touch this time, which forces the pace slow as well. For what feels like hours they just kiss, leisurely, hungrily, Seiji’s hand firm on the back of his neck. Shuuichi unwraps Seiji from his tracksuit as if he were a present, forgetting his frustration in the moment, too caught up in the way Seiji’s dick paints wet patches along the front of his pants. He pets his hair obsessively, kisses him in all the places he liked before.

Slowly, Seiji relaxes under his touch, begins to sigh and moan, let Shuuichi maneuver them as he likes. By the time Shuuichi has finished prepping him, Seiji looks dazed, a spot of drool dots the corner of his mouth. Shuuichi grabs a condom by habit and Seiji slaps it lazily from his hand, sending a dizzyingly amount of blood straight to Shuuichi’s dick.

Shuuichi slicks up then positions himself between Seiji’s legs, pretends his hands aren’t shaking. He watches Seiji’s face carefully for flinches of discomfort as he pushes in, but he just stares back at him, makes soft noises of pleasure. Shuuichi groans as he bottoms out. Seiji is so hot, slick, tight around his cock. Electric shocks run up his spine—he feels Seiji _everywhere_.

“Where do you want me to cum?” Shuuichi asks, gripping Seiji’s legs tight.

“Done so soon?” Seiji shoots back, but his words break in half over a gasp as Shuuichi adjusts inside him. That alone feels like enough to make Shuuichi cum, but then Seiji follows with, “Obviously I want to feel it inside,”

“Fuck,” Shuuichi gasps, stupidly, feeling absolutely winded. He pulls nearly all the way out then thrusts back in, a steady drag that he feels all the way down in his toes. He finds a rhythm, thrusting into Seiji’s velvety heat as Seiji rocks his hips up to meet him, gasping as he does.

“Seiji you feel so— _fuck_ ,” Shuuichi babbles, hitching Seiji’s legs higher so he can sink even deeper inside him, “You feel amazing—so good,” Seiji groans, flushing all down his throat. Jolts of hot, sharp, pleasure fire off in Shuuichi’s stomach as he thrusts into Seiji, who writhes and gasps and fucks up into him. Shuuichi can already feel his orgasm beginning to coil, tight, at the base of his spine but he draws it out as long as he can, fucking Seiji steadily as he greedily arches into him.

Shuuichi slams in deep as he comes, Seiji’s heel presses into the small of his back, holding him close, his hips rocking up so Shuuichi stays buried deep inside him. Shuuichi slumps over Seiji, effectively folding him in half—the way Seiji goes so willingly sends sparks flying between Shuuichi’s ribs—and buries his moan into the soft skin of his throat.

Seiji’s hand cards through Shuuichi’s hair, tugging just this side of too-hard, and Shuuichi lets Seiji pull his head out of the crook of his neck. He stares at Seiji, he always will, at his deep flush, at the sweat pasting hair to his temples, at the hungry, horny, look he gives Shuuichi before capturing his mouth in a filthy kiss, all teeth and tongue. Shuuichi, still struck-dumb by his orgasm, can only manage to groan and whimper as Seiji devours him. He tastes the sharp, iron tang of blood and realizes, dizzily, that Seiji has split his lip with his teeth.

Once Shuuichi has recovered half his senses, he pulls out and swiftly replaces his cock with his fingers, probing for Seiji’s prostate. Seiji gasps, breaking the rather one-sided kiss, and Shuuichi takes the opportunity to shift down and urgently swallow Seiji’s cock.

“ _Shuu-ichi!_ ” Seiji jolts like he’s been electrocuted, his hips jerking greedily into Shuuichi’s mouth, his cock bumping the back of his throat, making him choke. Shuuichi pulls off to cough, then swallows him back down. He fucks him with his mouth and fingers urgently, hungrily, and seconds later Seiji whines as he comes down his throat.

Shuuichi withdraws his fingers gently, then stares down at his hand—slick with lube, semen—with a stunned disbelief. He shoves Seiji’s legs up to reveal his swollen hole, as messy as his hand, and thumbs the abused tissue, looks up at Seiji. His eyepatch is long gone, the tangle of white scars a complicated contrast to his flushing, sweaty face. Seiji stares down at him like he’s wording an objection in his head.

So Shuuichi gently releases his legs and rises to find a flannel to clean up with. He longs to crawl back between Seiji’s legs, clean him up and get him messy all over again. But Seiji is winding up tight, his stone mask slipping back into place.

Instead, Shuuichi wipes himself off and tosses the cloth to Seiji as he lays down on the futon beside him. He closes his eyes as Seiji shifts beside him, then leaves for the bathroom. Shuuichi feels fizzy, his limbs light and saturated with heat. He dozes lightly, thinking of nothing beyond the lingering pleasure—and is surprised when Seiji sits back down beside him.

He opens his eyes to see Seiji staring down at him with a hot, hungry look. His dark eye burns out from behind his marble expression. Shuuichi threads his fingers through Seiji’s hair in a thoughtless, possessive gesture. It was not so long ago that he’d have sooner touched the moon than Seiji’s hair. Now, he smiles and luxuriates in the feel of the strands through his fingers.

Seiji’s still stiff, closed-off, but something in his face hums expectantly. Shuuichi realizes, startled, cruelly pleased, that Seiji doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants. But Shuuichi has made the study of Seiji’s non-expressions a lifelong pursuit.

“C’mere,” Shuuichi mutters and tugs on Seiji’s hair until their mouths meet.

-

When Shuuichi wakes in the morning Seiji’s head is cushioned on his shoulder, one arm slung across his stomach. Shuuichi lays on his back, breathes in the smell of Seiji’s silky hair, and his heart clenches, hot, in his chest. _He’ll be annoyed if he wakes up like this_ , Shuuichi thinks, wryly.

He extricates himself from beneath Seiji gently and dresses quickly and quietly. Seiji sleeps with a small frown, a gentle furrow between his brows that Shuuichi longs to smooth away. Instead, he checks the time; they slept through breakfast service.

He slips out of their room and goes for a soak in the hot springs. He blinks up at the grey sky and tries not to think about anything—not Seiji getting tested because he wanted Shuuichi to cum in him, not Seiji wearing a tracksuit because he knew Shuuichi liked it, especially not the soft, sweet, sound Seiji had made when Shuuichi kissed him after they fucked, as he began to withdraw back into his armor.

Shuuichi determinedly, and with mixed success, thinks of nothing at all.

He swings by the dining room and easily charms the wait staff into giving him a simple breakfast—some rice, broth, tea—that he carries back to their room on a tray. Inside, Seiji is awake and lounging by the window, one arm dangling out in the open air. He’s dressed, but barely, in a very sloppily tied up yukata. Shuuichi looks at him and his chest feels hot and tight, as if he’d swallowed coals.

“Morning,” Shuuichi says, smiling, and sits by the window, just beyond arm’s reach of Seiji, placing the tray between them. Seiji tracks his movements, his dark eye flashing, his ruined eye concealed behind a fresh eyepatch. He seems relaxed, like a big cat lounging in the sun. Shuuichi watches him openly; the curve of weak sunlight against his cheek, the arch of his brow, the sleek rainfall of his hair over one shoulder.

“Shuuichi,” Seiji says, extending a hand gracefully towards him, palm up. Shuuichi blinks in confusion for a beat too long, then cautiously puts his hand in Seiji’s, “You aren’t going to sleep with anyone else, are you?”

Shuuichi blushes, predictably. Honestly, he hadn’t even considered it. Who would he try to seduce? A co-star, curious enough to sleep with Natori Shuuichi? A fellow exorcist, wondering if they could take advantage? Nothing seems worth the effort. Not when, Shuuichi realizes with a sinking feeling, Seiji really knows him.

“No,” is his answer. Seiji smiles, his fingers tangling with Shuuichi’s, his thumb brushing across the back of his knuckles. Shuuichi looks at their tangled hands, baffled. Seiji extends one leg and gently pushes the breakfast tray away with his bare foot.

“Because you’re mine,” Seiji says, definitive.

“I won’t—I’m not going to—” Shuuichi stumbles out, choking on the hot feeling in his chest, on the glint of Seiji’s eye. He’s taught himself everything he knows; he’s built himself out of paper and ink and endless nights. He won’t have all he’s done, all he is, be swallowed up by the Matoba clan. And yet—and yet.

Seiji crawls into his lap, which really does a number on Shuuichi’s heart and dick. “Not the clan’s,” Seiji hisses, _“Mine,”_

 _Yes_ , Shuuichi doesn’t say, _yours_.

He tilts his chin up and lets Seiji kiss him, instead. An answer in itself.

-

Shuuichi hangs around one of the main rooms at the meeting, listening to a pair of older exorcists gossip. Hiiragi stands over his shoulder, but her attention is elsewhere so she doesn’t notice Seiji’s approach in time to scoff.

“Shuuichi-san, it’s been awhile,” Seiji says, blandly. He’s wearing the usual black yukata, his hands tucked away inside the long sleeves. Nanase waits several steps behind him, looking at Shuuichi with the usual look of disdain.

“I trust you’ve been well, Matoba-san,” Shuuichi returns, politely. He feels the lizard youkai crawl on his cheek and watches Seiji’s eye track it down his throat.

“Nasty,” Hiiragi mutters, which only makes Shuuichi smile broader.

There’s power radiating off the walls of the Matoba estate, years of history subsumed into the clan. There's power in Seiji's ruined eye, in generations of Matobas striving ever forward, power in his breath, each word a condemnation or a blessing for everyone living in the Matobas' shadow. But there’s power, too, in the way Shuuichi’s smile turns Seiji’s eye dark.

“I’m glad you always make time to come out to these meetings,” Seiji says, voice hollowed out, empty of meaning. His shoulders are already shifting, turning away, but his eye stays caught on Shuuichi, like a hook.

“Of course,” Shuuichi smiles, “Wouldn’t miss it.”


	2. am i awake

“For there was always this between us:

this anger, this desire. A longing that opened its mouth.”

\- Yves Olade, Belovéd

Seiji is fifteen and Shuuichi’s gaze is a hot caress on his skin, before the older boy looks away, furious. Seiji thinks, _ah-ha_.

There was something so appealing about the way his feelings played across Shuuichi’s face so clearly. Something about the way he reacted so obviously to Seiji, and just as obviously hated his own reactions. Seiji wanted to coax those delicious expressions out of him, gorge himself on Shuuichi’s blushes, scowls, hot gazes. But Shuuichi disappears from his life as abruptly as he entered it, one day trampling through the undergrowth within arm's reach, the next he reappears shortly, in glossy magazine covers, in advertisements on buses, larger than life on movie screens, always out of reach.

Seiji was never good at sharing, so when Shuuichi reappears in person he has no intention of ever letting him leave again. When Shuuichi was young he was reckless, rough around the edges, easy to show flashes of anger. Now, he’s sanded down. His laughter rings hollow, his eyes have no depth. He smiles and the lizard youkai walks rings around his lips, as if taunting Seiji.

But though Shuuichi had gotten better at hiding it, it never really went away—that serrated knife of anger he could just as easily fall on himself as cut another. It excites him; Seiji longs to spin inwards round that knife like a maypole, until all that separated them was that blade, until they saw for certain which one of them would bleed.

But instead they skirt around each other, avoiding the possibility of rewriting that quiet summer afternoon. This way, the last word strung out between them would forever be Shuuichi’s whisper-soft _“beautiful.”_ Immobilized somewhere between hatred and desire, like a butterfly pinned to cork.

-

Seiji wakes alone, his bad eye glued shut, his mouth dry. A sweep of his hand across the sheets yields the warmth of Shuuichi’s recent departure. He sits up and shrugs on his discarded yukata, then pauses as a gleam on the pillow catches his eye. He looks, but doesn’t touch, the comb laid out purposefully. Delicately carved in creamy lacquered wood, inlaid with mother of pearl, teeth like pins.

A threat. A gift.

Seiji goes to the bathroom to wash up. He peers in the small mirror as he soaks and scrubs his bad eye open, stares at the milky, split pupil, the way the thick ropes of scar tissue capture droplets of water. He pats dry and seals it all behind a fresh eyepatch.

He’s deliciously sore from the night before. He always enjoys their first night together, the impatient rush from being apart, the desperate pull of Shuuichi’s hands. But the second day is good, too, for the ways in which Shuuichi is so obviously caught with his guard down, so clumsily tries to regain his footing. Seiji smiles, private. That is the Shuuichi he likes best.

Back in the main room he hesitates over the comb momentarily before picking it up. It’s soothingly weighty in his hand, polished to a shine under his touch. He carries it with him to the window, which he slides open to breathe the crisp air. Seiji lays the comb precisely on the sill before settling down himself, hanging one arm out the window to catch the breeze.

Matoba Seiji is a creature of schedules, time parceled out into meaningful chunks, nothing ever done without reason, without gain. But here, in an unfamiliar family inn, Seiji was just himself. He put aside the clan not just for Shuuichi’s comfort but because it was nice to live, for a few brief hours, as if his time were his own.

Shuuichi returns with breakfast, as has become customary between them. He wears the inn’s yukata with the arrogant ease of a movie star, tied a little sloppy, drooping low over his tanned chest. His hair shifts towards bronze where it curls around his ears, still damp from the hot springs. His red gaze finds Seiji’s immediately through force of routine, but then his eyes catch on the comb on the windowsill and something between satisfaction and hesitance blooms in his face. Seiji tips his head at him, wordlessly. He’s let the yukata slip down his shoulders and left his hair loose—both things Shuuichi likes. And Seiji enjoys giving Shuuichi what he likes.

Shuuichi doesn’t trust anyone, least of all himself. He’s suspicious of his own desires, his own instincts, fighting them back until he can’t anymore. And yet, all Seiji has to do is let his hair down and his composure fractures. It had been easy, shockingly, almost offensively, easy after all the years, to get Shuuichi to give in to the desires he had fought so hard against.

Shuuichi sets the tray down, his eyes riveted to Seiji’s face. Though it burns, hot in his chest, to do so, Seiji maintains eye contact, relishes the lightest touch of pink to Shuuichi’s face. Seiji slides forward, clearing a space between him and the window, and Shuuichi almost-smiles. He’s so handsome Seiji’s teeth hurt.

Shuuichi sits on the sill, slipping his knees around Seiji and runs a hand through his hair, careful. He doesn’t have to vocalize his question; Seiji understands him just fine through the movement. He tips his chin up so Shuuichi can catch the edge of his smile. Shuuichi picks up the comb and begins to draw it down his hair.

Seiji’s chin tips up further, head pulled back gently by the drag of the comb through his hair. Shuuichi pulls it methodically, root to tip, following the comb with a pass of his hand, a soft counterpoint to the tug of the teeth. Through Seiji’s slitted eyes he can just see Shuuichi’s palm over his forehead, the barest flickers of his red eyes.

Neither of them speaks, the only sound the rising of Seiji’s breath as the prickle of the comb’s pull trickles down throughout his body, suffusing him in a warm, electric feeling. He lets his eyes close, the sunlight plays across his closed lids, as Shuuichi pretends his touch isn’t prayer.

Shuuichi is always so unwilling to give into his desires, so distrustful of the things he wants. He seems to believe that giving pleasure to Seiji is somehow different, though the hunger in his eyes, in his hands, is an obvious betrayal. Shuuichi pulls the comb steadily through Seiji’s hair, every touch a caress, every breath between them a benediction. Seiji loves the way Shuuichi touches him as his resistance crumbles, loves the miasma of self-loathing he gives off just before he succumbs to pleasure. 

Shuuichi twists Seiji’s hair around his hand and pulls, jerking back Seiji’s head to face the ceiling and kisses him like that—sloppy, hungry. His other hand snakes down the front of his open yukata. Seiji hums, satisfied.

Seiji isn’t sure that Shuuichi knows it, but the way he touches him is like worship.

Shuuichi’s hands paint patterns across Seiji’s skin, touch alternatively light, glancing, and firm, possessive. He always takes his time undressing Seiji, staring covetously as his skin is revealed. And his mouth, the way he drags wet kisses across his neck, chest, the greedy sucks to his stomach and thighs. Shuuichi often seems to forget himself—forget to undress, to chase his own pleasure—in pursuit of touching, tasting, treasuring Seiji.

It makes it easy for Seiji to relax into it, to give Shuuichi what he wants. He occasionally makes a point of proving Shuuichi, too, can be reduced to writhing in desperation, but it is so much easier to let Shuuichi take. To let him think he’s getting away with something.

-

Seiji keeps the comb in his bedroom, tucked carefully in a drawer. Every evening, he opens the drawer and looks at it—gleaming in the half-light, dangerous.

It is a challenge; one Seiji won’t back down from. But what, exactly, does one get a part-time movie star, part-time exorcist, who moonlights as one’s lover?

Seiji usually packs away thoughts of Shuuichi while they’re apart, taking them out only in the late hours before sleep, or in early dawn hours, to examine the exact expressions Shuuichi made, the precise shade of his furious blush. The clan comes first and takes up all of him, mind body and soul. But now Seiji is absorbed into this new puzzle, teases apart possibilities like he’s meant to use the comb through his hair.

It comes to him one evening as he holds the comb up to the moonlight, watches it refract off the mother of pearl inlay. His smile is satisfied, predatory, and only for the moon to see. It hasn’t been so long since Shuuichi insisted he would never accept anything from the Matobas, but Seiji knows he won’t refuse him.

-

Seiji gives Shuuichi the knife at midnight. The full moon shines through the low clouds, diffused into a glowing fog that clings to the walls of the room. Licks of steam from the hot springs linger on their throats, the soft inner skin of their elbows. He’d meant to do it earlier, but he’d worn an old pair of jogging pants and a stretched-out t-shirt and Shuuichi had barely waited to close the door to their room before devouring Seiji.

“This _shirt_ ,” Shuuichi had gasped, gripping fistfuls of the attire in question and yanking Seiji in close. Seiji’s breath left his lungs so fast he got dizzy.

Shuuichi had fingered him and sucked his cock with the kind of desperation Seiji usually associated with starvation, with the kind of heat usually reserved for rage. He’d come so dizzyingly fast he thought he must’ve passed out. Shuuichi had coaxed him back to consciousness by sucking a large, purple, bruise below Seiji’s collarbone, just above the line of the loose neckline.

Seiji isn’t quite sure why Shuuichi is so obsessed with gym gear, but he isn’t about to complain about such an easy manipulation.

He could tell, as Shuuichi knelt over him, that Shuuichi had wanted to keep going. Wanted to peel off his clothes, wanted to make him cum again, he could feel it in the heat of his eyes. But a coldness was settling in Seiji’s bones, like a reflex, and the thought of being touched was revolting once more. And Shuuichi, reading Seiji’s eyes, his movements, had backed off without a word. Shuuichi had been relaxed all through dinner, had peaceably agreed to a soak in the hot springs, as though he had no interest in chasing his own pleasure now that he’d taken Seiji’s.

Now, Seiji kneels on the futon with Shuuichi and hands him the knife. The steel shines bright in the moonlight, the carved ivory handle fits, snug, against the meat of Shuuichi’s palm. 

Shuuichi holds it and stares for a long time at the ripple of light in the metal. He could, but doesn’t, ask _why_. When he looks up his eyes are hot and dark. The lizard skitters along the line of his jaw, as if agitated. Seiji thinks about what the boy Natsume told him, about how the lizard never goes to Shuuichi’s left leg.

Shuuichi says thank you not with words, but by cradling the knife in hand, precious, and kissing Seiji’s throat.

-

Seiji stands in the doorway and lifts the bag of persimmons. Shuuichi stares at him as if he were an apparition.

“Excuse me,” Seiji murmurs, toeing off his shoes and entering the home. Shuuichi startles, offers him house slippers, asks,

“Would you like tea?” All the formal routines ring hollow between them. They move like ghosts through the empty home.

Seiji and Shuuichi had been hired for the same exorcist job. An uncommon, but not unheard of, occurrence, it had been years since they had doubled up on a job. The client was a superstitious politician who regularly hired the Matobas for cleansing rituals, but this time was convinced his estate was haunted and so had hired on Shuuichi as double insurance. Seiji was impressed by how Shuuichi had so seamlessly slipped back into their old routine, their public routine—a smiling, distrustful coalition.

Though Seiji could still feel the hot weight of his stare, lingering on the knot of his tie, the cut of his suit. They had been inscribing protective circles at the cardinal points of the estate, when at the North point Shuuichi turned to Seiji and smiled, charmingly, “It’s a fair way for you to travel back and forth in one day, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Seiji confirmed. If he had turned his head even slightly Shuuichi would be completely eclipsed by the creamy paper of his eyepatch. He kept him there, right on the edge of his sight.

“If you’d like to rest awhile…” Shuuichi let the words trail off. Seiji faced him fully and smiled without teeth,

“Why, Shuuichi-san, are you inviting me to your home?” He hadn’t imagined the flicker in Shuuichi’s expression.

“And if I were?” The question came out too raw to be calculated. Seiji bared his teeth,

“I would say yes,” Seiji saw a dark hunger rise up in Shuuichi’s face before his expression shuttered. Smiling, Seiji returned to his work. He could count this as a victory.

There had been no hauntings at the politician’s estate, so it had been child’s play to set up extra barriers and reassure him all was well. Seiji watched Shuuichi charm the politician and his staff, distrustful of the proprietary heat in his own chest. Shuuichi’s easy smiles, the way he touched a hand to his hair, falsely modest, stoked a feeling close to rage between his ribs.

Shuuichi was departing on foot, Seiji in his usual car, so they parted ways at the gate. The sun was meandering towards the horizon, the air crisp, cool, and thick with unspoken words between them.

“Well…” Shuuichi had not quite been able to look at Seiji, “You know where I live,”

“I do,” Seiji had replied, feigning indifference.

Up to this point they had only ever met in anonymous inns scattered around the countryside. That Shuuichi was willing to bring Seiji into his home—into decidedly un-neutral territory—Seiji got a hot thrill just thinking of it. He’d had his driver do laps around the neighbourhood for twenty minutes, watched the evening sun wash the buildings an uncertain grey, watched the slow flurry of pedestrians gather at street corners, disperse with the light.

Seiji had been chasing Shuuichi for so many years, chasing him through the woods in high school, hungry for another look at his sulking, angry face, chasing him through the warrens of his self-denial, chasing him even when he was right in front of him. If Shuuichi stopped running, if he just gave in, gave himself fully to Seiji, where would that leave them? Seiji got out of the car two blocks from Shuuichi’s condo to buy the persimmons from a market and walked the rest of the way.

Now, Shuuichi brews tea while Seiji stands in the middle of the room, turns in a slow circle. The walls are all plain white, the furniture sparse, the kitchen counters gleam, untouched. The condo feels like an open grave.

They sit on the stark white couch, which dips reluctantly under their weight. Seiji sets the bag of persimmons on the low coffee table and withdraws one, small yet shiny and ripe orange in his palm. For a moment they stare at each other, Seiji holding the persimmon, Shuuichi watching him. The air rings silently around them.

Seiji unfolds a handkerchief neatly on his lap as Shuuichi settles next to him, one leg drawn under him, turned fully to face him. Seiji always carries a small pocket knife and he draws it out now, slices the stem neatly off the persimmon. Shuuichi watches the blade as if he doesn’t trust it. Seiji watches the lizard crawl down the front of his shirt. Seiji quarters the fruit and lays them out in a neat array on the napkin.

Seiji lays the knife conspicuously aside and raises one hand to his mouth, licks the trickle of juice that runs down his thumb, wrist. Shuuichi watches his mouth, his own lips parting as if to taste. Seiji picks up one of the quarters of persimmon and pries the flesh from the skin.

“Open,” he says, his voice soft. Shuuichi hesitates only momentarily before opening his mouth. Seiji feels a brilliant thrill in his gut as he places the fruit neatly onto Shuuichi’s pink tongue. He closes his mouth and chews, absently, his eyes riveted to Seiji.

Smiling, Seiji neatly separates another quarter from its skin, slips the fruit into his own mouth. With his clean hand he makes a fist in the front of Shuuichi’s shirt, pulls him in close and he comes willingly. Their lips meet, slide together familiarly, open to one another. Seiji pushes the fruit from his mouth into Shuuichi, who startles, almost pulls away but for the grip Seiji keeps on his shirt. Only once he’s reluctantly accepted the fruit does Seiji break the kiss.

Shuuichi withdraws slowly, holding the fruit carefully in his mouth. He looks startled, confused. Slowly, he begins to chew and Seiji smiles, indulgently. A blush blooms rosy in Shuuichi’s face. Seiji peels another quarter and pops it into his mouth. Shuuichi’s red eyes track his hand, almost apprehensive. But when Seiji reaches for him, he still comes willingly.

This time, when Seiji slips the fruit into Shuuichi’s mouth he follows with his tongue, flicks his teeth, the roof of his mouth, pushes the persimmon into him. When they break apart Seiji recognizes the look Shuuichi gives him. Cautious, wrong-footed, annoyed. Flushed from the kiss and a little humiliated, he chews in silence. Juice dots his bottom lip. Seiji is achingly hard.

Seiji peels the last quarter slowly, relishing the heat of Shuuichi’s eyes on him. He will not refuse him.

He places the fruit on his own tongue, pulls Shuuichi in. They meet, mouths already open, and Seiji slips the persimmon easily into Shuuichi’s mouth. Seiji breaks the kiss only to drag his lips along Shuuichi’s jaw, lick the juice from his chin as he chews, breath rushing, ragged, through his nose.

When Shuuichi swallows Seiji traces a path down his throat with his mouth. “Good boy,” Seiji murmurs into the thin skin above Shuuichi’s collarbone. Shuuichi jerks back and glares at him, his mouth a furious white line. Seiji looks at him and laughs.

Seiji crawls into Shuuichi’s lap, cradles his jaw and tilts his face up so they breathe the same air. He grinds his erection into Shuuichi’s stomach, relishes the way his expression scuttles—eyes hot, cheeks red.

When they kiss it tastes of persimmons.

Shuuichi fucks him on the couch, hips hitched up into the air, face pressed to the unforgiving cushions. One hand holds his hip steady, an anchor, the other drifts along the bones of his shoulder blades, traces the movements that shiver along his back.

When Seiji comes onto the white couch he grins, expression safely hidden from Shuuichi, and has to resist the temptation to rub his semen into the bleached material. Shuuichi hauls him up so he’s kneeling, his back pressed to Shuuichi’s front from shoulder to thigh. Seiji’s head lolls back against Shuuichi’s shoulder as he gasps. Shuuichi’s cock rams deep inside Seiji who, sensitive, feels his throat nearly close up.

“Vindictive little shit,” Shuuichi hisses in his ear, one hand splayed across his sternum. If Seiji had any air in his lungs he would say it back. Instead, he turns his head and bites into the tendon of Shuuichi’s neck. Shuuichi yelps and then comes, his cock buried deep inside Seiji. Shuuichi holds him up for a long while, his breath harsh in his ear, sweat pooling between them, his cock softening inside him. When Shuuichi pulls out, Seiji grits his teeth so he won’t whimper.

Shuuichi gets up to grab a flannel, which he dampens in the kitchen sink, and returns to hand it to Seiji. He can see in Shuuichi’s face a hesitance, a longing, and Seiji steels himself against a shudder. His body is cold, a chill that radiates from his bones and seals himself off from the world, from Shuuichi’s warm hands. He takes the cloth, and Shuuichi turns away to pull on his pants. Seiji feels the last of the heat drain out of him as he shrugs back on his clothes, the fabric rough against oversensitive skin. He feels the catch of Shuuichi’s eyes on him and it’s annoying, now, even as something inside him thrums for more.

“Stay,” Shuuichi is standing in the kitchen, his hands falsely busy with water glasses, his red eyes on Seiji’s, “Stay for the night,” his tone hovers between question and command.

Seiji stares at him as buttons his pants, crossing the floor to stand opposite him across the kitchen island. Gilded sunset just barely filters through the blinds, casts bars of gold across Shuuichi’s bare chest, lights up his blond hair. He’s so handsome. Seiji’s stomach rolls.

“Alright,” Seiji says, as if it is easy. As if it doesn’t cost him anything.

Shuuichi picks them up dinner from a convenience store, which they eat at the kitchen island in silence. It’s not an entirely comfortable silence, but it is familiar by now, a space they fall into when they’re alone together. There’s so little that is safe between them, silence is always better.

Shuuichi takes him to bed after, slips off his clothes, watches him with that hungry look in his eyes that makes Seiji’s body throb in response. Seiji loves Shuuichi’s body, the smooth line of his stomach, the strength of his arms, legs, the soft tan lines slicing across his skin, dividing up his body into seen and unseen, the world’s and his. How the pale, soft, skin of his thighs blends smoothly into the golden tan of his abdomen, the press of muscles against the skin there so assured. He’s handsome, he’s always been so damned handsome.

Bruises on his throat, scratches down his back, all proof Seiji has touched him, held him, marked him up, claimed ownership. Thinking of others seeing the marks he’s left on Shuuichi’s body feeds a greed in him; knowing Shuuichi has to cover them with clothes, makeup, gives him a vindictive satisfaction. Either way, he wins.

Shuuichi lays down on the bed and pulls Seiji on top of him, their bodies slide naked together as Seiji slips a knee between Shuuichi’s thighs, braces one hand on his shoulder. Shuuichi reaches up and undoes Seiji’s hair, combs through it with his fingers as the strands fall around them, an inky curtain. He grins up at him and it lands like a blow in Seiji’s chest.

Shuuichi’s hands trace idle patterns along his back, sides, swirl around his hipbones, the knobs of his spine. When Seiji’s hips start to shift, impatient, unconscious, Shuuichi holds him still and close and kisses a slow path down his neck, along his collarbone.

Seiji’s whole body feels hot, his skin tight and fizzy, pleasure a thick coil around the base of his spine. Shuuichi’s cock presses into his stomach, smears precum along his soft skin. Seiji kisses Shuuichi fiercely, greedy with his tongue and teeth, and Shuuichi responds in kind—his mouth hot and hungry, as if he could take him apart, ruin him, just like this.

Seiji pulls back to breathe, looks down at Shuuichi, flushed, lips spit-slicked, rose red, framed in the black of Seiji’s hair. Shuuichi looks up at him, naked, wanting.

“Look at you,” Shuuichi murmurs, his voice thick like he’s choking on his desire, “Seiji…”

Seiji can feel a flush burn down to his chest, Shuuichi leans up to follow it down with his lips and tongue, sucks a nipple into his hot, wet, mouth. Seiji makes an unconscious noise in response, his body arcing hungrily into him, Shuuichi’s hands tighten on his hips and the noise becomes a half-choked moan. Shuuichi drags his mouth up his throat, to his ear, across the eyepatch as if it isn’t there. Seiji’s breath comes fast and hard, his chest tight around his heart, beating against his ribs as if it could break through.

Their tongues slide, hot, together, their panting breath mingles damp between them. Shuuichi’s hands trace soft designs across Seiji’s back as Seiji bites his lip, soothes it in search of a drop of blood. Seiji loves kissing Shuuichi, the intimacy of it, the vulnerable little sounds Shuuichi makes into his mouth, the tangle of bodies they twist themselves into, as if they could crawl into one another mouth-first.

Somehow, their kisses slow; they trace delicate shapes across each others’ face with their lips, nuzzle soft licks into each other’s necks, press their bodies together, breathe gentle sighs against the others’ cheek. Shuuichi twines Seiji’s hair around one fist, drags the strands across his mouth. Seiji tracks the path of the lizard across his chest with the very tips of his fingers.

Somehow, naked in bed together, they kiss until they fall asleep.

In the morning Seiji will wake up still mostly on top of Shuuichi, their skin sealed together by dried sweat, their hair a black-blond tangle on the pillow. Shuuichi will look at Seiji like a deer in headlights, like someone who had their wildest dreams come true and is afraid, now, of what they hold in their hands. Seiji will kiss him, to end the moment, to distract Shuuichi from whatever feeling is bubbling up into his expression. To distract himself.

-

Sometimes Seiji’s desire sets his blood to boil, makes his hands greedy to touch and grab, makes his mouth water to taste. And sometimes it’s cold, freezes his blood to slush, immobilizes him. Shuuichi watches him carefully, his eyes sharply attuned to whatever Seiji might slip in his expression. It’s almost annoying, this familiar dance—what could Shuuichi want, how could Seiji give it to him, how could they ever be willing to say it? _I want you._

It’s been more than six weeks since they were last together. Seiji has been busy lifting his clan higher, chasing power that he can hold in his own hands. He’s sure Shuuichi’s been busy, too, in his own way. It’s the longest they’ve been apart in the year since this routine began. By this point Nanase quietly, though disapprovingly, clears Seiji one or two weekends a month, though some things can’t be avoided.

But now, after so long apart, Seiji stands in their rented room with ice in his veins and Shuuichi within arm’s reach. The room is small, made to feel larger thanks to a floor-to-ceiling mirror, as wide as Seiji is tall, which dominates one wall. In the dim light, it makes their bodies into wraiths behind the glass. Seiji glances at it, once, and never again. Shuuichi’s eyes are as hot as a brand as they sweep Seiji’s face, his longing a palpable thickness in the air.

And Seiji longs to give Shuuichi what he wants.

“It’s been a while,” Seiji says, as casually as he can manage. He places one palm on Shuuichi’s chest, directly over his heart.

“Yes,” Shuuichi breathes. His heartbeat thunders against Seiji’s palm, his eyes track him hungrily. Seiji allows himself a small smile as he slides his other arm around Shuuichi’s waist, pulls their bodies together in a chaste embrace. Shuuichi runs hot, his hands seem to burn through Seiji’s clothes to brand his skin.

“You haunt me,” Shuuichi breathes against his neck.

Seiji shivers and says, firm with command, “Tell me,”

Shuuichi’s mouth drags against his throat, his tongue presses against Seiji’s pulse. “What? How desperate I was? How I thought of you?” Shuuichi’s voice is caustic with self-loathing. Seiji nearly shivers again.

“Yes,” he hisses into Shuuichi’s ear, presses against him, slips a hand along the line of his waistband. Shuuichi bites into the tendons of his shoulder, his hands gripping Seiji’s clothes as if he’d like to tear them off. Seiji slips open the button of Shuuichi’s pants, dips a finger down the pale skin revealed.

Shuuichi huffs, then says, his voice thin, “I thought of you on the couch how you…” he trails off as Seiji pets down the front of his zipper, feeling his cock through the material. Seiji lifts his brow at him, loves the way Shuuichi blushes in response. He unzips Shuuichi’s pants and pulls out his cock, strokes him to fullness, revels in the hitch of Shuuichi’s breath.

“You were saying…?” His voice comes out steady.

“Fuck,” Shuuichi gasps, holds Seiji’s eye determined, even as his blush deepens, “How fucking tight you were how—your _mouth_ —" Shuuichi breaks off as Seiji folds neatly to his knees at his feet.

“What about it?” Seiji asks, keeping a loose fist around the base of Shuuichi’s cock.

“You—" Shuuichi breaks, looks up at the ceiling, one hand touching Seiji’s hair blindly, gently, “I thought of this, I want this,”

Seiji smiles, smug, pleased, and licks at the precum beading on the tip of Shuuichi’s cock. Shuuichi sways, leans over as if to curl around Seiji.

“You think of me when we’re apart?” Seiji keeps his tone mild.

“Yes,” Shuuichi replies like the word is dragged out of him. Seiji kisses his cock, swallows the head into his mouth and flicks the slit with his tongue. Shuuichi makes a sound like he’s been hit.

“You touch yourself and think of me?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Shuuichi hisses. Seiji smiles up at him, smiles at the furious self-loathing in his voice, at the hunger in his eyes, at the flush on his handsome face.

“Good,” Seiji says and swallows down his cock. It’s a new experience, the weight of it in his mouth, the stretch to fit his lips around, the smell of Shuuichi so close and thick. He hums, contemplative, and Shuuichi groans, pets Seiji’s hair mindlessly.

He bobs his head slowly, traces his tongue up the thick vein along the bottom of his cock, licks at the head, strokes his fist up in time. Shuuichi shakes, his entire body strung tight as a bow, as if to resist thrusting into Seiji’s mouth. And _that_ is enough to pique Seiji’s interest, even through the iciness in his veins.

Seiji finds no particular rhythm, sucks and licks and tests how deeply he can take his cock. Drool and precum mix on his chin, which he wipes away impatiently. Shuuichi’s hands thread through Seiji’s hair, create a mess of tangles around his fingers. It’s not an especially elegant experience, not that Seiji’s complaining. Seiji’s bottom teeth catch on the head of his cock and Shuuichi gasps, thrusts into his mouth and Seiji nearly chokes.

Seiji’s jaw begins to ache, a pleasant stretch, just as Shuuichi hisses a warning. Seiji pulls nearly all the way off, just the tip of the head of his cock catching on his lips and looks up at Shuuichi through his lashes.

“That—that’s not helping,” Shuuichi wheezes. Seiji smiles around his cock as he swallows him back down. “Ah fuck, baby, I’m gonna—” Seiji moans around him and Shuuichi comes. His cock throbs in his mouth, releasing a bitter taste into Seiji’s mouth. Seiji milks Shuuichi with his hand and mouth, and then pulls off to spit his cum onto the floor.

Shuuichi falls gracelessly to his knees, hauls Seiji in by his hair and kisses him, sloppily, thoroughly, licking his own taste from Seiji’s mouth. Seiji is surprised to note heat has pooled in his gut, despite the chill still settled over his skin. Shuuichi breaks the kiss to pull off his own shirt, revealing tanned skin, flawless, with none of the lingering bruises Seiji has become used to. His presence has been erased by time. Seiji leans in and closes his mouth around the crook of Shuuichi’s neck, bites down hard. Shuuichi makes a breathy, desperate noise he fails to hide in Seiji’s hair. When Seiji withdraws to examine the dark red-purple mark, he feels a little warmer.

“Seiji,” Shuuichi says. Even though he just orgasmed, his hands slow and clumsy from it still, his eyes continue to burn, his desire radiating off him as he strokes Seiji’s hair. It’s annoying. Seiji draws his nails down his back, hoping to leave trails of red. Shuuichi gives him an indecipherable look, part amusement, part desire, and something else, something that makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

Shuuichi breaks away to rummage in his discarded clothes a moment and then presses something hard, cold, into Seiji’s hand, “For you,”

Seiji stares at him, suspicious. For all the flushing, hungry heat in his expression, there’s something sly hovering around his mouth. Seiji looks down at his hand. It’s a flat disk of polished, lacquered black. A vein of gold runs through the centre, fractures like lightning. He turns it over and stares into his own face.

Shuuichi smiles pleasantly at him, eyes crinkling. Seiji’s grip is white-hot around the mirror. He very nearly whips it at the blond.

“You like it?” Shuuichi leans in. Seiji has to focus very hard on keeping his expression still, placid. Like a lake on a clear day. Shuuichi grips his chin and tilts his face up, captures his mouth in a kiss. The rounded edges of the mirror dig into Seiji’s palm, even as he parts his lips for Shuuichi to taste his mouth. Shuuichi’s other hand touches his shoulder, presses him down onto his back. Seiji stiffens and Shuuichi pulls back, his lips pink and shining,

“If you tell me to stop I will,” Shuuichi says seriously. To Seiji, it sounds like a threat. Seiji just looks at him, the eager light in his eyes, the hungry tilt to his mouth. Shuuichi’s hand moves up, ghosts over his neck to settle on Seiji’s right cheek with a soft crinkle of paper.

“I won’t,” Seiji murmurs. The look Shuuichi gives him makes Seiji want to scrape out all his soft innards and devour him, raw, like clam.

Shuuichi’s fingers slip under the edge of the eyepatch, gently ease it off. Seiji’s bad eye waters at the sudden light, weak as it is. He looks at Shuuichi, oddly doubled now, a hazy impression shadowing the lines of his body. Shuuichi leans in slowly, telegraphing his movements, and presses their mouths together in a soft kiss.

-

The autumn air is thick with the last gasp of summer heat, the steam trails into question marks above the hot spring. Seiji watches the tiny youkai scamper around the edges of the pool through slitted eyes. His body is absolutely exhausted, his limbs hang heavy even in the water, but his mind zings energetically, feeds a buzzing in his eyes that makes it impossible to relax. Beside him, Shuuichi slumps in the water with a sigh, long neck bared to the evening sky, golden hair catching the warm lamp light.

It’s only been a week since they saw each other last, but Seiji is greedy and after the week he's had enjoys the heavy silence between them. The bruises from the week before still bloom, brilliant, on Shuuichi’s skin; a mottled green-purple at the base of his throat, faint pink marks down his back, a black-blue bruise the exact size and shape of Seiji’s thumbprint on his hip.

If his body is tired, Seiji’s soul feels bruised, tender like an overripe fruit. He thinks of a familiar shape walking along the shoreline, the sheets of long black hair, the pitiless black eye, a familiar mouth shaped around the wrong voice… In the back of his mind he can still hear the youkai screaming, thrashing as he bent it to his will, swallowed it up with his power. His body feels scraped raw from the inside out, overworked, but he can endure the pain, endure every drop of blood, endure every scar.

Seiji watches, out of the corner of his eye, the lizard trace the shadows of Shuuichi’s collarbones. He knows he must do more than endure. He must thrive.

“Shall we head in?” Shuuichi’s voice comes to him as if from the bottom of a well. Seiji realizes he’s been staring into Shuuichi’s rust-red eyes and blinks, slow, to clear his vision. They’ve already fucked once, exchanged clumsy, desperate kisses and handjobs exactly how Seiji would imagine it at fifteen. He’d like to be fucked properly, but he’s so _tired_.

Seiji nods in assent and they stand to leave but then Seiji falls face-first into darkness.

Seiji wakes in the dark, tucked in a futon with a cool cloth on his forehead. For a moment, time shifts around him. He’s five years old and his mother is peeking in on him as she creeps home in the pre-dawn light. She thinks he’s asleep, so she dares to brush his hair from his face, trail her cool fingers across his forehead. He keeps his eyes closed, holds still, to better feel the gentle caress of her gaze. Then a handsome face leans over Seiji and time clicks back into place.

Seiji looks up at Shuuichi and asks him, with the slant of a brow, what happened.

“You fainted,” Shuuichi can’t entirely conceal the glee from his voice.

“I did not,” Seiji snaps. Shuuichi grins, shamelessly,

“Yes, you did!” He crows, helping Seiji sit up with a soft touch to his shoulder, “What do you remember?”

“How far back should I go?” Seiji drawls in reply. Shuuichi’s ears turn pink even as he rolls his eyes,

“Just before you fainted,”

“We were in the hot springs,” Seiji replies, “We had just gotten out and…” _my mother placed a cool hand on my face because she thought I was asleep._ Shuuichi is looking at him, some strange marriage of concern and malicious humour in his expression. “Well? Do I pass your rigorous testing?”

“Sure,” Shuuichi presses a cup of cool water into Seiji’s hand and sits back. Condensation blooms on the outside of the glass, beads of water drip at his touch. Seiji sips the water and focuses on the cool path it traces down his throat, his chest. He can practically feel the twists of Shuuichi’s thoughts as they sit in silence; his better nature pitched against the years of history between them, the things left unsaid.

“You—”

“Don’t,” Seiji says, at almost the same moment. He stares at Shuuichi, who stubbornly meets his eye. _You don’t want to know_ , he doesn’t say, _Let’s pretend a little longer_. Shuuichi frowns at him, rubs at the bridge of his nose, right where those ridiculous glasses usually sit. Seiji continues to stare at him, wills him to bend, not break, under the weight of the contradictions between them.

With a sigh, Shuuichi gets to his feet and moves to sit under the window. He looks out at the smudge of the nighttime sky instead of at Seiji, who sips his water placidly. Frustration blooms hot in his veins—if it is a victory to get Shuuichi to do what he wants; then why does he feel so disappointed?

-

Autumn collapses into winter in the time they’re apart. Leaves the colour of crusted blood sink below a dusting of snow, puddles freeze whisper-thin on the roads, fracture in the morning sun. Shuuichi looks good in the wintertime, the cold brings a soft flush to his cheeks, his nose, while his skin, his hair, glow golden against the frost. When Seiji picks him up outside his condo, his eyes catch on the handmade scarf Shuuichi wears, pulled up to just below his nose. A complicated feeling Seiji decides must be desire rises up in him at the sight.

Later, safely ensconced in their private room, Shuuichi laughs as he unpeels layer after layer of insulating clothing from Seiji’s body. “You hate the cold,” he grins as he says it, not a question, eyes lit up.

“What’s to like?” Seiji scowls and steps out of his long underwear. Shuuichi kneels at his feet, runs a hand up Seiji’s thigh, goosebumps flare up in his wake. His breath brushes, hot, against chilled skin, as he draws Seiji down so he kneels opposite him. Seiji runs a hand up Shuuichi’s chest, around his shoulder, chasing the path of the lizard.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Shuuichi smiles, “I’m sure we can find something,” His arms loop around Seiji and he pulls him into a kiss. Seiji touches Shuuichi’s neck, shoulder, waist, glancingly as he licks into his mouth, as Shuuichi pets down his side soothingly.

Seiji loves kissing Shuuichi, the heat of his mouth, the greedy push of their tongues together, the sweet drag of his lips against his cheek, jaw, throat. Shuuichi kisses him like it’s a battle, like he wants to climb inside him, and Seiji gives as good as he gets. Shuuichi rubs along Seiji’s stomach as they kiss, his hand warm and gentle against skin that prickles at his touch.

Shuuichi pulls Seiji into his lap and rolls one nipple between his thumb and finger, skates his hand down Seiji’s thigh, sending little jolts of pleasure radiating from his touch. Seiji sighs into his mouth and Shuuichi makes a soft, needy noise in response that goes straight to his dick. Seiji pushes Shuuichi onto his back, follows him down, fails to suppress a shiver as Shuuichi traces the knobs of his spine.

“Alright?” Shuuichi’s voice is as soft as his hands are gentle. Seiji feels like he would fly apart without his touch.

“Of course,” Seiji snaps. Shuuichi smirks at him, traces a finger down the cleft of his ass and grins when Seiji jolts. He has to cast about for the lube, never out of reach of the futons, and slicks up his hand. Shuuichi slips one finger inside him as he rubs circles into the base of his spine, kisses a trail along his neck, while Seiji gasps and squirms on top of him. He opens him up slowly, steadily, while Seiji hisses and bucks into his hand, full yet wanting, a delicious twist in his navel. He’s so hard he feels a feather-touch away from orgasming, and Shuuichi keeps him there, right at the brink of unbearable.

“How many times do you think you could cum?” Shuuichi asks, almost conversationally but for the heavy rasp of his breath. Seiji makes a noise like he’s been hurt, but Shuuichi knows it for what it is and doesn’t stop scissoring his fingers inside him.

It’s harder going than usual, Seiji is tensed, sensitive, and they both fight for every inch he drops down onto Shuuichi’s cock. Seiji gasps and whines when he’s fully seated on Shuuichi, who mumbles a meaningless string of syllables, traces a path up his thighs, eyes bright in his flushed face. Seiji braces himself with a hand on Shuuichi’s thigh, who pants at his every move.

Seiji rolls his hips and gasps as jolts of pleasure jump up his spine, Shuuichi’s thumbs rub soothing circles into his hips, gently guiding him to rise up and then drop back onto his cock. Every drag of Shuuichi inside him feels incredible, shocks of intense pleasure throb inside him, push small noises from his throat. Shuuichi is looking at him like he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, it makes Seiji’s skin feel unbearably hot and tight.

“Come on, baby,” Shuuichi coos. The words send an almost painful jolt through Seiji’s navel and he moans, flushing all down his chest. Shuuichi watches him, an almost-smile pulling at his slack mouth. He’s breathless and delighted when he adds; “You like that?”

Seiji grinds down onto him and whimpers. Shuuichi’s cock drags inside him, stokes a heat that floods his whole body, a wave of pleasure that’s almost pain. He can feel sweat collecting in the hollow of his throat, tracing a path down his spine, pooling where their bodies touch. His grip on Shuuichi’s thigh is precarious, his legs twitch as he lifts himself up.

“Fuck, baby,” Shuuichi gasps and Seiji moans and flushes and clenches around him, “ _Ah_ —you’re so good,” His red eyes scan up and down his body, hungrily. His hands follow the path his eyes marked, running up from Seiji’s hips to roam across his chest, ribs, rub at his nipples.

It’s too much—his skin too tight, his body too hot, an unbearable pressure of pleasure forces out pathetic little whines from him. He rolls weakly down onto Shuuichi, not able to collect the coordination to chase the satisfaction he craves.

“Shuuichi,” Seiji gasps.

“Touch yourself,” Shuuichi says, his voice soft, hungry. Seiji wraps a hand around his own cock and strokes himself as he fucks down onto Shuuichi and makes an inelegant noise. He whines and Shuuichi’s hips cant up into him, “Seiji,” he says, urgently, and Seiji comes. He curls forwards around his own hand, his hips grind down onto Shuuichi as his whole body shudders with the force of his orgasm.

He floats, momentarily, in the blissful feeling of release, the tight coil inside him undone, his nerves buzzing, his body relaxing. He opens his eyes to find himself half-cradled against Shuuichi, who’s sat up with one arm looped around him. He’s still hard inside Seiji. Seiji grinds experimentally down onto Shuuichi’s cock and feels a sharp pleasure just this side of too much.

“Fuck me,” Seiji says, barely able to feel his own mouth. Shuuichi groans and shifts beneath him. Obviously, he wants to.

“Yeah?” Shuuichi’s breath brushes hot down Seiji’s neck. The naked desire in his voice nearly makes Seiji shiver.

Shuuichi lays him back gently, his hands firmly guiding Seiji into place with his legs bent and spread. He leans down between Seiji’s legs and captures his mouth. Seiji’s orgasm fizzles out, leaving in its wake the usual coldness, but with Shuuichi kissing him so hungrily it’s hard not to respond, his body flushing hot.

Shuuichi thrusts back into him and Seiji yelps into his mouth, Shuuichi swallows the sound greedily before withdrawing. He presses Seiji’s legs up further, so he slides in even deeper and groans. He bites a kiss to the side of Seiji’s knee and begins to move.

He sets a punishing pace, harder and faster than usual. Seiji cries out as Shuuichi slams his overstimulated prostrate and Shuuichi gasps like he’s been shocked. It’s too much, it’s far too much, but Seiji clings to the futon and rides the waves of pain-pleasure

“Shuuichi—!” Seiji cries out, insensibly. He can’t think beyond the pull between too much and not enough, between the pain that has him clenching his jaw, and the shocking pleasure that forces pathetic mewls from between his gritted teeth.

“Seiji, you look—you feel so good, god, you’re so good, _fuck_ ,” Shuuichi gasps and Seiji squirms beneath him. He’s not even sure if he feels good or bad, only that he _feels_ , every nerve in his body firing off sparks.

Seiji can’t find the coordination to move his hips with Shuuichi. His hands claw a path up Shuuichi’s arms, cling to his shoulders. His skin zings with electric shocks, his brain goes white hot, leaves no room behind for thought. His breath comes thin and fast, as though there isn’t enough room in his body for air in his lungs.

Pressure starts to grow inside him, unbelievably quickly. The drag of Shuuichi’s cock inside him, the feeling of fullness, the slams to his prostate begin to build once more to a fizzing pleasure inside him, a thick heat pooling in his navel. Seiji gasps as Shuuichi fucks him beyond what he thought he could bear.

“Oh fuck, are you gonna cum?” Shuuichi stares down at Seiji in wonder. Seiji makes a sound dangerously close to a sob and shakes his head, “No? Or you don’t want to?”

“ _Shuuichi_ ,” Seiji whines. Shuuichi gasps “ah, fuck,” softly, sincerely, and wraps his hand around Seiji’s cock. Seiji’s back bows as he’s overwhelmed with sensation. He bites into the meat of his palm, a sharp pain in counterpoint to the heat of his skin, the tight spiral of pleasure coiling around the base of his spine.

Shuuichi keeps one hand on his thigh, folding him neatly in half, the other strokes him firm and fast. His cock slams Seiji’s prostate every two or three thrusts, each time forcing a weak moan from him. Seiji’s focus spirals in to just the overwhelming sensations—his burning skin, the throbbing in his cock, the tense, almost painful, building of an orgasm—he loses track of his body, his mouth, the increasingly desperate sounds torn from his throat.

“Seiji, Seiji, _Seiji_ ,” Shuuichi says. Seiji forces his eyes open to look at him, flushing, eyes alight, looking down at him shocked, wondrously, “Can you cum for me?” Seiji whines at the rawness of Shuuichi’s voice. He can feel tears gathering in his eyes. He can’t stand it and yet he _wants_ —

Seiji’s orgasm is wrenched from his body, all his awareness spirals down to that hot, tight, feeling and he cries out. Shuuichi slams into him three more times, his hand holds Seiji’s cock gently as he comes weakly, and then buries deep inside him as he comes.

Seiji wheezes for air as Shuuichi clumsily pets his hair, slumping forward to bury his face in the crook of his neck. Seiji’s skin feels too tight, his body overfull with a hot, buzzing sensation, stoked even by the puff of Shuuichi’s breath on his skin and Seiji makes a sound of protest in the back of his throat. Shuuichi heaves himself up onto his hands, looking punch-drunk and debauched.

He pulls out slowly, looking down between them to watch his cock slip out of Seiji’s ass. Seiji makes the same noise of complaint and Shuuichi shoots him a look of disarming fondness before he clumsily gets to his feet. Seiji wipes a hand down his face, annoyed at himself. It’s almost worse that Shuuichi looked at him that way—better to never acknowledge these kinds of slip-ups.

Shuuichi kneels back between Seiji’s legs holding a damp flannel and begins to gently wipe Seiji’s stomach clean. If Seiji weren’t so pummelled he would pull away, but as it stands his entire body fizzles brightly and his limbs feel as sturdy and cooperative as pudding.

When Shuuichi begins to work his way down between his legs, Seiji lifts a foot to Shuuichi’s shoulder and shoves, or tries to. Shuuichi calmly wraps one hand around his ankle, his grip iron, and continues to clean Seiji up. For his part, Seiji glares and tries to piece together something appropriately scathing to say.

He can feel the usual chill in his bones, but it’s slow to spread this time. His skin hums, electric, from the memory of Shuuichi’s touch, his heart thuds loudly in his ears. The heat eases out of his limbs, syrup-slow, pools in his navel, pulls sleepily at his eyes. A strange pressure builds in his chest that feels horrifyingly close to crying. Seiji closes his eyes and scowls as Shuuichi wipes him clean like some kind of invalid.

Shuuichi does a sloppy wipe-up of himself then lays down on his back beside Seiji, a hands width of distance between them. He looks so relaxed it pisses Seiji off. Shuuichi rolls his head to the side to look at him, his red eyes soft. Seiji meets his gaze with a glare.

“C’mere,” Shuuichi’s voice is barely more than a whisper, his lips pull into a small, crooked smile as he slides an arm under Seiji’s shoulders, hauls him into his side. His body is as hot as a brand against his, his skin so golden it seems to produce its own light. Seiji places one hand, slow, to the bend of Shuuichi’s waist. Shuuichi’s lips brush his forehead, like a clumsy caress. Seiji closes his eyes, blocks out his voice, his touch, the way his heart beats on his ribs as if it could burst free.

-

Seiji wakes alone, his hair a tangle over his good eye. The sheets smell of sweat, of the musky cologne Shuuichi wears. He sits up to finger-comb his hair, thinks of the way Shuuichi had chanted his name the night before—the soft shock of his voice, the hiss of his breath on the _S_ , the desperate uptick on _ji_.

He shrugs the yukata just over his shoulders, runs his hands over the dip of his collarbone, ridges of his hipbones, tracing the bruises and bites Shuuichi left behind. Seiji goes to the bathroom to wash up, the yukata flapping from his boney shoulders like a pale impression of a ghost. He carves his ruined eyelid open from crusted rheum and flakes of blood. He looks at his reflection; a pale wisp with death-black hair down to his chest, a face split messily between calm and calamity. In his head Shuuichi says, _Seiji, Seiji, Seiji._

He returns to the main room to pull ink, brush, paper from his bag and settles on the edge of the futon. He lays out the materials in front of him and waits.

Shuuichi returns with breakfast and a flushed complexion. Beads of moisture gather in the hollow of his throat, drip down the open v of the yukata. He freezes a moment in the doorway, caught surprised, then slams the door shut behind him, ears flushing pink. His eyes catch Seiji’s, then slide down his naked body, land on the ink and paper. He sets the breakfast tray on the low table by the door and approaches slowly, caution radiating from his stiff limbs. Seiji watches his lips part around his name, silently.

Shuuichi kneels opposite him, close enough that they are within arm’s reach, far enough that his knees do not touch the paper before him. Shuuichi’s eyes zip across Seiji’s face, cautious, calculating, and Seiji is reminded of a time more than a year ago, when his face was still raw with the wound that would coalesce into his scar. When Seiji determined he would fulfill the promise of a quiet summer afternoon years and years ago.

There is a lot Seiji could say, now, as he picks up the brush, but he doesn’t have to. Shuuichi’s eyes catch on Seiji’s hand like a shooting star, his lips part softly around a wish.

“I believe you are familiar with it,” Seiji says, pressing the brush into Shuuichi’s hand. He stares at him, red eyes wide, mouth a soft line. His fingers are warm against his, slow to receive the brush. Dryly, Seiji adds, “The Natoris are known for their skill with paper,”

Seiji expects that to be enough to startle Shuuichi out of his reverie. Instead, he blushes, gentle and slow, and his eyes go soft as they stare straight through Seiji. He barely suppresses a shiver and extracts his hand from the brush. Shuuichi wets his lip, a flicker of pink tongue, gathers his sleeve in one hand, then looks down at the strip of paper.

Seiji watches Shuuichi dip the brush in ink and begin to draw the protective charm, his hand steady, confident. Seiji’s mouth waters and he thinks, but doesn’t say, _mine you’re all mine_. Instead, he softly chants the incantation, barely above his breath, and Shuuichi’s hand matches the rhythm perfectly.

There’s the usual gentle gather of power, the warm breath of Seiji’s incantation falling into the ink, but now Shuuichi’s power, too, carries into the paper, lays against Seiji’s skin like a balm. It feels incredibly intimate and for a moment Seiji wavers, wonders if he’s miscalculated, if he’s giving away more than he’s gaining. Then Shuuichi’s eyes flick up to his, a brief flash of red, and Seiji feels a fist uncurl behind his sternum.

Finished, Shuuichi sets aside the brush and lifts the eyepatch with both hands, reverent. He purses his lips and blows on the ink gently. Seiji shivers as if it were his skin Shuuichi’s breath touches. He looks at Seiji, as if in response to that small motion, something fragile, naked, in his face. Seiji watches him in return, careful.

Shuuichi sets the paper aside delicately, reaches out for Seiji and pulls him into his lap. Seiji goes willingly, lays gentle hands on his shoulders, looks down at him, handsome face framed by his fine black hair. His expression is unfamiliar; soft, open, _adoring_ , Seiji might call it, in someone else, with none of the usual conflict; no flicker of self-loathing in his eyes or frown on his lips. Shuuichi looks up at him like he’s forgotten himself completely. Like he’s thinking only of Seiji.

Seiji will still be wearing the eyepatch in three week’s time, when his car pulls up outside a soundstage to pick up a part-time movie star. Shuuichi will know that it is his when they meet again, he will recognize the flicks and whorls unique to his own hand. Seiji will keep him close with it, in the weeks that they are apart.

They stare at each other, and Shuuichi doesn’t need to speak.

Seiji can understand him just fine.


End file.
